bmoconline... celebrating 8 1/2 years without a Yankee championship!

J + B 4-28-06

2009-08-17T10:08:00.003-04:00

I'm breaking my (probably permanent) blog hiatus to mention that I lost my wedding band in the Atlantic Ocean, off Plum Island in Newburyport, MA, this weekend. It's inscribed "J+B 4-28-06". Since I assume someone has found it by now and that the finder's first move will be to Google the inscription, I'm going to mention the inscription as many times as possible in this post.

J+B 4-28-06. If found, email jillandbryan@gmail.com for your reward. Don't expect much.

Thank you,
Bryan (the B in J + B 4-28-06).

Grading my baseball picks

2008-09-29T15:38:00.002-04:00

In my April 5 post, I predicted the complete Major League Baseball standings. Of the eight teams that will actually make the playoffs, I picked only four, and my Indians over Diamondbacks World Series isn't looking so good, but there were some highlights:

In the American League East, I predicted four of the five teams' records within one game of their actual results. I had the Red Sox winning the division at 95-67, their exact actual record, and the Y*****s missing the playoffs at 89-73, just as they did. If only I'd given the Rays an extra 19 wins, I would've nailed this division.

On the flip side, I couldn't have been much more wrong about the AL Central. I had the Indians (who finished third) and the Tigers (who finished last) each winning 90+ games and making the playoffs, with the contending Twins and Indians winning 77 and 72 games, respectively.

The AL West was a little easier: Angels good, everyone else bad. I did, however, peg the Mariners to win 22 more wins than they actually won.

In the NL East, the optimist in me almost directly switched the Phillies and the Mets. I "knew" one of them would win 89 games and miss the playoffs by one, but I hoped it would be the Phillies.

In the NL Central, I underestimated three teams: The Cubs (who won 97 games, to my pick of 83), Cardinals (86-74), and Astros (86-73), but I saw the Brewers making the playoffs for the first time in 26 years, and somehow knew the Pirates would finish last.

I gave all the wins I took from the Central to the West division, where I saw four teams winning 88+ games and contending for the playoffs. I was right about the order in which the four finished: LA, Arizona, Colorado, and San Diego, but I gave them a collective 55 extra wins, 25 of which went to the surprisingly hapless Padres.

If the voters get the postseason awards right, I won't have correctly predicted any of them, but there's a good chance Brandon Webb will steal the NL Cy Young Award from Tim Lincecum, fulfilling my prophecy. While my MVP picks, the New York third basemen, had excellent seasons, their teams' failures will keep the awards out of their hands.

The end of the blog?

2008-08-17T21:24:00.003-04:00

Yeah, so I joined Facebook. I'm not proud of it, as I'm sure it will stifle my creativity and keep you posted more on what I'm "doing right now" than actual events of substance taking place, but was I really that creative in the first place? Did I ever have anything going on that you just had to read about? Did I even avoid ending sentences with prepositions?

In case you need a final fix, or in case I bring back the Memorable Moments feature for one last run, a few things of note that have happened in the recent past:

Jill and I met Mike and Sarah at the Porthole on Friday, where business as usual was interrupted by a fishing boat bringing in an 8-foot, 400-pound shark. The weekly party on the dock came to a screeching halt as everyone stopped to gawk at and applaud the three fisherman and one three-year-old girl who saved countless Maine lives by reeling in public enemy number twenty-three or so. I got a picture on my phone. From 20 feet, it looks like a 6-ounce eel in the seafood aisle at Shaw's.

Today, Welcome to the Fukudome played a heartbreaking softball playoff game, losing 13-12 in nine innings (two of which were "extra") against the top seeded Orioles in the first round. After a 1-5 start, we had to sweep a doubleheader last Sunday just to qualify for the playoffs, where we very nearly pulled off the upset of the tournament. I went 1-for-4, probably dropping my average close to .500 after hitting over .800 with four homers in the first four games. Dog days of August, I suppose.

Not sure if I've written about the 18 straight days during which we accommodated guests, from Pat and Rob and Nick and Heather to Kristen and family and Mom and Dad to countless (mostly pregnant) bachelorette party guests. We had a blast hosting everyone willing to come to Maine, but we're ready for our own vacation, this week in Gloucester with the Jeffreys.

I guess that's all I've got. You know, besides my impending fatherhood and all. But you probably already know about that.

Another top fifty

2008-07-28T16:50:00.002-04:00

One weekend. Two Moynihans. Two McDowells. One list (and some dingers, and a new Nameburst record). Without further ado, the top fifty:

a woman scorned
blaze of glory
bloodless revolution
blowhole
bum bag
colaborating (sic)
cougars
denouement
diaper dandy
established since
exit only
free love freeway
horticulture
Jenkins' ear
ladies who lunch
loose morals
manpower
merconium
mnemonic device
mons pubis
nautical mile
news chopper
stiff upper lip
Texas leaguer
twins!

And the top 25, in order:
25. death tax
24. inner ear
23. agism
22. castrati
21. be kind to your behind
20. hourglass figure
19. war profiteering
18. soft underbelly
17. clambake
16. triple word score
15. Yeah! Yeah! God is great
14. Moh's hardness scale
13. stool boom
12. fire retardant
11. Joey Lawrence's career
10. snow day
9. ribbed. for her pleasure
8. no fly zone
7. furtive glance
6. bubble wrap
5. owse cream
4. back-alley abortions
3. Tricky Dick
2. mufffin top (sic)
1. t-shirt tucked into windpants

Acadia, Tiger, and Miscellany

2008-06-18T13:23:00.005-04:00

I took last Friday off and went exploring with Jill. Not having experienced the Maine coast, we took our time driving up and enjoyed the scenery that Route 1 had to offer in Bath, Camden, and Belfast before descending upon Mount Desert Island, home to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.

I've seen a lot of trees and a lot of hills and a lot of water in my life, and I'm not easily impressed by any of the lot. From the top of Cadillac Mountain, every tree and every hill and every square foot of Atlantic Ocean is like the first you've ever seen. A panoramic montage of glistening water and untrodden islands is enough to make the land ends, ocean begins mantra of your local beach feel obsolete.

After a short trip through Acadia, we checked out Bar Harbor, an ice cream and antiques village reminiscent of Lake George, if you replaced the lake with miles of the most spectacular ocean shoreline in the country. We enjoyed a few Bar Harbor Real Ales with dinner, stayed at a cozy B&B, bid a slow adieu to MDI in the morning, and headed inland.

The next stop was the Marston cottage on Lake Cobbosseecontee in Manchester. We helped the cousins pick up sticks and install windows and put the dock together before settling in for more Bar Harbor Real Ales and some US Open golf.

That brings us to Tiger. I watched several holes of golf this weekend, and for the first time every, found myself rooting for Tiger. Just about every sports rooting interest I've ever had has been based on the idea of sharing the wealth. I hate the Yankes and the Cowboys and the Lakers becuase they always win (or at least, over some extended period of my life, they always won). I can't root for UCLA basketball or Notre Dame football or the USA basketball team in international events. If one unexpected championship in the face of decades of adversity can bring more joy than five $200 million championships won with all the best talent and all the best luck, and I truly belive it can, what's the point of rooting for the favorite?

I've always applied this philosophy to Tiger, the world's most dominant athlete (ever?), but I'm starting to change my mind. Here's what sets Tiger apart: golf is rarely played one-on-one. The idea of throwing 156 players onto a golf course for a long weekend is almost immune to dominance. Groundskeepers make the courses as difficult as possible and essentially eliminate golfers as they make a few mistakes. Two double bogeys on Thursday and you probably won't be around on Saturday. One drive into the water on Sunday afternoon and all of a sudden you're off the leaderboard. Everyone goes into a tournament with something in the vicinity of a 1 in 156 chance to win.

Everyone, that is, except Tiger. This guy is so good and so consistent that majors have essentially been reduced to Tiger against the field, with each having a fifty percent chance to win. Now slice up Tiger's knee, don't give him much time to heal, and pit him against a mob of 155 able-bodied golfers, one on one, over 72 holes, and who's your underdog? Not ready to root for him yet? Put him over par and a few strokes off the lead on Thursday. Start him with double bogeys on the first hole on three of four days. Put him a stroke behind the leader heading onto the 18th green on Saturday (eagle) and Sunday (birdie). Make him play an additional 19 holes on Monday to break a tie, and put him a stroke behind after 17 again (another birdie!).

I rooted for Tiger, and I'm not apologizing. And I'll root for him again, if he ever recovers.

In other news, I don't watch much NBA basketball these days, but I watched a few games of these finals, including last night's delightful romp of a clincher, and while it wasn't the ultimate good vs. evil story, there was certainly plenty of evil to overcome. I've never rooted for the Celtics, but I like Garnett, and I took a shining to Rondo and Big Baby and Leon Powe, and I was thrilled to be up well after midnight celebrating with them.

Clam Dip put together a gutsy short-handed win last week, and we stand 3-4 going into the regular season finale tomorrow. Meanwhile, Welcome to the Fukudome, my softball team, is 0-2 despite batting .565 collectively through two games.

Off to Kim and Matt's wedding this weekend. Congrats to the happy couple.

No more Hummers?

2008-06-03T13:15:00.002-04:00

GM has announced that it may stop manufacturing and selling Hummers. Decisions this big aren't made without a careful analysis of relevant numbers. I wonder which numbers factored into GM's decision...

$135.09/barrel?
$3.98/gallon?
8-13 miles/gallon?
91,889 bodies?
$0.39/share?

Did somebody say 39 cents?!

Cooperstown Revisited

2008-05-30T13:34:00.004-04:00

I spent the long weekend in Cooperstown with Kim, Matt, and Jill. It hadn't been long since our last pilgrimage, but enough had changed to warrant a return trip, and the town is still magical in its quaintness. One major change since our last visit was the induction of several negro league greats in 2006, which kept the following list brewing in my head all week. I gave up trying to limit the list to ten, and had to cheat to get it down to twenty-five.

Best Hall of Fame names:

25. Goose Goslin and Goose Gossage
24. Harmon Killebrew
23. Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Nap Lajoie
22. Addie Joss and Amos Rusie
21. Hack Wilson and Zach Wheat
20. Wee Willie Keeler and Pee Wee Reese
19. Ferguson Jenkins and Gaylord Perry
18. Pud Galvin and Kid Nichols
17. Biz Mackey and Bid McPhee
16. Ducky Medwick and Chick Hafey
15. Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown
14. Jud "Boojum" Wilson
13. Yogi Berra
12. Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander
11. Tinker to Evers to Chance
10. Dizzy Dean and Dazzy Vance
9. Old Hoss Radbourn
8. Catfish Hunter
7. Elmer Flick
6. Burleigh Grimes
5. Cool Papa Bell
4. Al Kaline
3. Turkey Stearns, Mule Suttles, and Devil Wells
2. Cum Posey
1. Heinie Manush

Doin's a-transpirin'

2008-05-09T14:30:00.002-04:00

Another Sprummer kickball season is underway. My team, Clam Dip, is off to a 1-1 start after an 8-0 victory in week one and a 5-3 loss yesterday. I pitched a complete game and homered in last night's losing effort, but couldn't recreate the magic of Jarrett's near-perfect game last Thursday.

I'm experimenting with a new fantasy baseball format- the baseball survivor pool. Each participant drafts one pitcher and one hitter, and is eliminated if:

-the hitter fails to record a hit, walk, hit by pitch, sacrifice walk, or sacrifice fly in a game in which he has four or more plate appearances
-the hitter does not start for two consecutive team games
-the pitcher fails to pitch six full innings in a start
-the pitcher gives up five or more runs in a start
-the pitcher fails to record a strikeout in a start
-the pitcher does not start for nine consecutive team games.

The last participant with his or her pitcher and hitter still active wins the pool. I'm debuting the format with a beta group of nine people this weekend, and if it's successful, plan to expand it in the future, perhaps with amended criteria for eliminating players. If you're interested, let me know.

Best. Songs. Ever.

2008-04-22T21:01:00.002-04:00

You've been reading my album, movie, and song lists for five years now. Here's the last (best?) one ever.

Masterson

2008-04-15T15:05:00.003-04:00

Saw Justin Masterson, the top Red Sox pitching prospect, in person last night at a Portland Sea Dogs game. He didn't impress, but he had some valid excuses. On a night that started around 42 degrees and ended long after Jill and I went home to thaw, Masterson encountered as much resistance from Mother Nature and an eerily quiet Hadlock Field as from the Connecticut Defenders.

His line: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3K

Masterson left with a 4-2 lead but didn't get the decision in the Sea Dogs' 5-4, 11-innings win. Two of the hits were doubles, and all were well-hit. He was behind in a lot of counts, but managed to get a lot of ground ball outs. He never broke 86 on the radar gun, though to be fair, the gun registered many of his pitches at 41 or 42, as if it were more impressed by the temperature than by his arm strength. Masterson's most impressive throw of the night was a pickoff move that nailed a runner straying from second base to get out of some trouble in the fourth.

Much more impressive was Masterson's sixth-inning replacement, Chad Rhoades, who struck out five in two innings, breaking 90 on almost every pitch. Rhoades walked two and gave up a hit, and may not have fooled anyone with an arsenal of fastballs and fasterballs, but on an April night in Maine, I'd rather take my chances with Masterson's junk than Rhoades's lightning.

Charlton Heston is Dead

2008-04-06T16:29:00.001-04:00

But is he dead enough?

Baseball preview, etc.

2008-04-05T15:28:00.003-04:00

I let a record six weeks elapse between posts, but I've been reading so many baseball previews lately that I had to weigh in with my own. Here goes:

AL East
Boston 95-67
New York 89-73
Toronto 85-77
Tampa Bay 78-84
Baltimore 64-98

Central
Cleveland 93-69
Detroit 90-72
Minnesota 77-85
Chicago 72-90
Kansas City 71-91

West
LA of Ana 95-67
Seattle 83-79
Texas 76-86
Oakland 74-88

NL East
New York 93-69
Philadelphia 89-73
Atlanta 82-80
Florida 73-89
Washington 71-91

Central
Milwaukee 85-77
Chicago 83-79
Cincinnati 75-87
St. Louis 74-88
Houston 73-89
Pittsburgh 71-91

West
Los Angeles 91-71
Arizona 90-72
Colorado 89-73
San Diego 88-74
San Francisco 61-101

Division Series
Indians over Red Sox
Angels over Tigers
Diamondbacks over Mets
Dodgers over Brewers

Championship Series
Indians over Angels
Diamondbacks over Dodgers

World Series
Indians over Diamondbacks

AL MVP- Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP- David Wright
AL Cy Young- John Lackey
NL Cy Young- Brandon Webb

I made these picks on March 25, and would change a few things based on interim events. Both the White Sox and Royals could finish ahead of the Twins. The Angels will still with the pathetic AL West, but not with 95 wins, and with Lackey injured, Justin Verlander will win the AL Cy Young award. With Pujols and the whole rotation hurt, the Cardinals might finish last in the NL Central. Dingers!

28

2008-02-21T15:23:00.003-05:00

I've entered that stage in life in which age becomes more or less meaningless. I suppose every age is arbitrary, since it measures nothing more than how many times the Earth has revolved around the sun (subject to an adjustment every fourth year) since that moment (several weeks after we're formed and functional) when we no longer depend on our mothers for nutrients and shelter (except that we still do).

When you're a kid, particularly an American one, every year means something. Seven-year-olds are smarter than six-year-olds and eleven-year-olds can beat up ten-year-olds and the state of New York says that you're physically and emotionally capable of riding a bicycle without a helmet after fourteen orbits of the sun.

Sixteen means driving. Seventeen means viewing graphic violence or strong sexual content or those long-coveted adult situations without being accompanied by a guardian. Eighteen means voting and smoking and buying porn (that precious combination of adult situations that lead to strong sexual content and the occasional violence; a combination so volatile that it takes an extra 365.25 viewings of the moon to prepare for it). Nineteen and twenty just bring you closer to the age that really counts in this country: the day you can drink alcohol without a fake ID or an apathetic bouncer or a consenting parent or a setting in which those over twenty-one have provided it for you.

From there, different ages mean different things to different people. For me, twenty-two and twenty-three were akin to infancy in the post-college world, particularly in the workplace. I got engaged (24) and married (26) and bought a house (27) young, so my mid-twenties birthdays all seemed to justify the life I was already living. I don't think I could have gotten through the last few years without the beard, which helped me pretend I was ready to buy a headboard and negotiate mortgage points and manage a sixty-five-year-old man when the face under the beard was better suited for food fights and Little League games.

That brings us to tomorrow, when I turn twenty-eight. I've honestly thought I already was twenty-eight for the past several months, but people keep asking me how old I'll be and I have to subtract 1980 from 2008 to remember that I'll be twenty-seven for a few more hours. "Just a baby," they reply, and I remember that they're right. I still struggle to tie a tie. I still operate fake sports leagues in which I can dictate the outcomes of games and winners of awards. I still giggle when I have to abbreviate Cumberland County in three letters on a caucus form. And I don't think any of that will change tomorrow.

Once the federal and state governments have largely stopped dictating our actions on the grounds of our ages, that "2008 minus 1980" calculation really doesn't apply anymore. Age is measured in gray hairs and crow's feet. It's late nights at the pub or early mornings with the baby or early bird tee times. It's miles on the bike or creaky joints and bad backs. It's whether ones actions are responsible for one or two or three hundred other people's lives.

I'm guessing tomorrow will be like any other birthday in my twenties. I'll eat cake and drink beer and count my blessings that I don't have to be up with the baby the next day. It's good to be young.

Name my fish

2008-02-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

I picked up two new fish this weekend: both pineapple swordtails, one big and female, the other small and male. I'd like to play on their size in naming them, but Sonny and Cher seems too easy.

I considered John and Margaret, after Jill's paternal grandparents, or Paul and Mary, after my Dad's maternal grandparents. Both couples fit the bill, but not having known three of the four, I'm not sure we're allowed such mockery.

Had the Pats won last night, they may have been Welker and Wilfork, but I think that's out of the question.

Any ideas?

Hall of Famers

2008-01-26T12:23:00.001-05:00

It's been 2 1/2 years since the gang and I last evaluated active major league baseball players' chances at getting in the Hall of Fame. With so many developments since then (McGwire's snubbing, Palmeiro's, Bagwell's and Biggio's retirements, Reyes's and Wright's breakthroughs), I thought I'd take another crack at it. I'll divide players into five categories and offer likelihood percentages, where applicable. I'll only include players with three major league seasons under their belts, so you won't see Justin Verlander or Hanley Ramirez here. Feel free to let me know who I missed.

Definite Hall of Famers if they retired today, in order of credentials
Greg Maddux
Alex Rodriguez
Pedro Martinez
Randy Johnson
Mike Piazza
Frank Thomas
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Tom Glavine
Mariano Rivera
Ivan Rodriguez
Derek Jeter

and, if they let cheaters in (which I think they should)
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens

Hall of Fame Candidates if they retired today
Trevor Hoffman (97%)
Manny Ramirez (96%)
John Smoltz (95%)
Chipper Jones (65%)
Jim Thome (60%)
Curt Schilling (55%)
Todd Helton (40%)
Omar Vizquel (35%)
Jim Edmonds (20%)
Mike Mussina (15%)
Jason Varitek (15%)

and, if they let cheaters in (which I think they should)
Sammy Sosa (75)
Gary Sheffield (60%)

Hall of Fame Candidates with a few more good seasons
Johan Santana (98%)
Vlad Guerrero (97%)
Ichiro Suzuki (70%)
Andruw Jones (60%)
David Ortiz (55%)
Carlos Beltran (50%)
Billy Wagner (40%)
Jorge Posada (35%)

and, if they let cheaters in (which I think they should)
Andy Pettitte (40%)
Miguel Tejada (35%)
Jason Giambi (15%)

On pace to be Hall of Famers, barring catastrophe
Albert Pujols (95%)
Miguel Cabrera (80%)
Jose Reyes (75%)
Roy Oswalt (65%)
David Wright (65%)
Jake Peavy (65%)
C.C. Sabathia (55%)

Hall of Fame Candidates with many more good seasons
Ryan Howard (50%)
Brandon Webb (45%)
Roy Halladay (45%)
Alfonso Soriano (45%)
Carl Crawford (40%)
Chase Utley (40%)
Carlos Zambrano (35%)
Lance Berkman (35%)
Travis Hafner (30%)
Magglio Ordonez (25%)
Ryan Zimmerman (25%)
Robinson Cano (20%)
Justin Morneau (20%)
Dan Haren (15%)

10 TV shows

2008-01-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

I finished the second season of Arrested Development last night, and its masterfully conceived, written, and acted characters got me thinking about the best TV shows I've ever watched. Before you take issue with the absence of your favorite show, I haven't watched enough Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Sopranos or anything aired before I was born to consider them. These are the ten best TV shows I've watched with some regularity, basically covering the 20 years I had cable TV: 1986 to 2006.

10) Cheers... memorable characters, fresh story lines in an ideal setting. Who doesn't have at least one Cliff, Sam, Diane, Carla, or Norm in his life?

9) Six Feet Under... the family dysfunction we've been fed so many times, this time surrounded, torn apart, and held together by the main character, death. The only hour-long drama on this list.

8) The Office (BBC)... perhaps its superiority to its NBC counterpart comes from its brief airtime (two seasons and a two-part special), which allowed it to avoid the "Jim and Pam got together, so what do we do now" season. We had never met a David Brent before, and we'll never forget we did.

7) The Cosby Show... a more functional family, I suppose, but a funny one nonetheless. Our first look at a wealthy black family in Brooklyn gave us a host of relatable characters, but was always driven by Heathcliff Huckstable. Give major points for Cosby's improv, an A-list of guest stars, and one of the great casting saves, the addition of Olivia (who brought out Cliff's best lines) as plots involving the older siblings grew stale.

6) Arrested Development... again with the family dysfunction, only with quirkier, more sharply defined characters and plots so absurd and irreverent that American audiences couldn't keep up. Buster Bluth had been done before, but probably not this well, and nobody saw GOB or Tobias Funke coming.

5) Seinfeld... "a show about nothing," which was either the first of its kind or a lazy rip-off of every sitcom before it. Eschewing the family dynamic for the less formulaic "urban comedian, his hot-tempered ex girlfriend, his wacky neighbor, and his pathetic, neurotic friend", Seinfeld redefined the "situation" in sitcom.

4) Sportscenter... if ever there was a show that needed to be invented, it was Sportscenter. Before scores and updates were available around the clock, there was one show that recapped the day's games and transactions. For thirty years, anchors and reporters, segments and countdowns have come and gone, but there's still no better place to find out who won the Belmost Stakes or who will win the Super Bowl.

3) The Daily Show... brilliant with Kilborn, transcendent with Stewart. Who could have predicted that a show built around fake news and satirical reactions to real events to it would become the primary source of real news for a generation of educated, liberal-minded youth?

2) Jeopardy... in a world now so inundated with game shows that they require their own network, one quiz show will always be the gold standard. The questions are hard enough to weed out pretenders, but straightorward enough for fans to play along at home, and most importantly, banter and fanfare take a back seat to the A&Q portion of the program. Two commercial breaks, no lifelines, and few gimmicks.

1) The Simpsons... and it's not close.

Honorable mentions include The Office (NBC), Family Guy, Little Britain, and The Real World. What did I miss?

Moments '07

2007-12-31T18:44:00.000-05:00

Click here for my 25 most memorable moments of 2007. That is all.

Autumn in New England

2007-12-20T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's snowing. Again. Must be the fifth or sixth snowstorm in December, totaling 30+ inches. Maybe five inches so far today, and no end in sight. We've got the most shovel-friendly driveway on earth (less than five feet of pavement beyond our cars), yet I've spent as much time shoveling this month as I've spent eating. This morning, I shoveled and cleared off the cars a little before 7, and when I went back outseide at 8, it looked exactly the same as it did before I shoveled. Rigoddamndiculous.

Oh, and winter starts on Saturday.

The Songs, v3.0

2007-12-03T19:08:00.000-05:00

It took a few months longer than expected, but The Songs, v3.0 is ready. Take a look.

Isiah?

2007-11-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

Isiah Thomas? Dwyane Wade? How do I keep missing these ridiculous spellings? I probably read "Isiah" 500 times over the past 20 years and never once noticed Mrs. Thomas's blunder. I'm not as sharp as I think I am.

In other news, I successfully tied my own tie this morning. This may not sound like an impressive feat for a 27-year-old who wears a tie at least once a week, but at least once a week, I stand in front of a mirror and try in vain to tie an acceptable knot, only to hand the tie over to my loving and talented wife, who gets the job done in two or three tries. Not wanting to wake her on a day off, I forged on this morning, striking gold on my sixth or seventh effort.

Another impressive streak came to an end on Sunday, when I drank a Dr. Pepper, my first soda in more than a year. After succumbing to one of the intense cravings I've been having for most of the past 60 or so weekends, I feel like I can go another year without one. It was, however, delicious.

Jill and I caught a scintillating Holy Cross football game this week with her dad and brothers. At dinner after the game, three-year-old Lauryn insisted that our back-of-the-placemat drawings of her family be anatomically correct (and all female). I resisted at first, but as the increasingly fervent cries of "I need to draw a vagina!" echoed throughout the restaurant, I gave up, and Noah's crayon likeness may never forgive me.

Look Ma, We're Going to Vegas!

2007-11-09T16:05:00.000-05:00

A few stats and facts from Look Ma, No Hands's brilliant kickball season, which came to an end with our 11-0 loss to Balls Deeper in last night's championship game:

-We finished 8-3, including two wins and a loss in last night's playoff marathon.

-There were seven men on the team. When at least six were present, we went 8-0 and outscored opponents 25-7. When fewer than six were present, including last night's final, before which we lost Matt to a hamstring injury, we went 0-3 and were outscored 19-0.

-That's right, we gave up more runs than we scored and went 8-3. We're like the Arizona Diamondbacks with bigger balls.

-We had the option to take the title last night, when one of the four girls on Balls Deeper left in the third inning with an illness. WAKA rules state that they have to forfeit in that situation, but it didn't seem right to take the cheap win when we were down 11-0 after two innings.

-Another reason not to take the forfeit is the rule that sends both finalists to the national championship next Labor Day in Las Vegas. I'm not sure it'll hold up 10 months from now, but at the moment, we're planning on going.

-Our semifinal against Bears was probably the game of the season. Up 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth (and last) inning, Bears loaded the bases with no outs. They cut the lead to one on a sac fly, bringing the tying run to third with one out, but the game ended up a liner to the pitcher (your friend and humble narrator), and a fly out to the thirdbasewoman (the wife). By the skin of our teeth, we earned a mauling in the final.

The Top 50

2007-11-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

As determined at Mike and Lisa's wedding by Pat, Mark, Eric, Shayna, Nick, Heather, Jill, and me.

1) Ken Tingley
2) "I was in the seat. I'll take the heat."
3) Moynihan sandwich
4) titties (white)
5) swamp-ass
6) manhole cover
7) trifecta
8) family buns
9) duck hunt
10) salad days

#11-50, in alphabetical order:

Afternoon Delight
Agent Michael Scarn
ampersands
Angelina Jolie's lips
Avogadro's number
Back to the Future
Beau's threesome
cheese
Coccia
corn chowder
dance-offs
Dr. Thunder
"everybody out of the chunnel"
Farrah Fawcett 1977
front-clasp bra
gallows humor
grande meals
heckuva job
honky
hubris
ice cream cake
jerk chicken
lifeblood
Lou Gehrig's disease
Macallan 18-year
misanthrope
more bitter than sweet
nuptial
obamarama
palindromes
phallic guord
puddin' shack
RBI baseball
Schrute Farms beets
Stauntonicity!
the rapist!
The Simpsons seasons 4-9
TPS Reports
"Trashbags"
Wass

Still Tall

2007-11-01T15:57:00.000-04:00

All my life, I've enjoyed the advantages that come with being tall. My height added 20 mph to my serve, upgraded my basektball skills from pathetic to useful, forced a few people to take me seriously in the business world, and offered me views of cleavage unavailable to the average person. There's a certain comfort that goes along with almost always being the tallest person in the room, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Lately, though, I'm finding more disadvantages to my height. Ever try squeezing 78 inches and 245 pounds into an airplane seat? How about one of those cruel wooden seats at Fenway Park? Worse still is the strain on the knees and back from carrying around all this weight, of which I could probably only lose about 12% before I lost the ability to stand upright.

There are times when I'm sitting on a couch and I know I need to get up, so I look six and a half feet in the air and think how the hell am I getting all the way up there? I feel like I'm aging four years for every year I exist at this altitude. I'm 27 years old, and at this point, I still feel like the pros of my gargantuanity outweigh the cons. I wonder if I'll be saying the same at 47. Or 67.

The Red Sox won. We got a whole bunch of trick-or-treaters. Lots of car time in the near future, starting with Mike and Lisa's wedding this weekend. That is all.

Productivity

2007-10-14T19:29:00.001-04:00

Things (Jill and) I accomplished this weekend while sleeping past 10 both days:

-Raking a yardful of leaves and mowing the lawn, after expletive-laden battles with two lawnmowers
-Outfitting our living room, kitchen, and master bedroom windows and doors with curtains, sheers, and valances
-Staining another section of the posts and railings of our front porch
-Watching almost every inning of a Red Sox win (thanks to Byron) and an Indians win (thanks to Brett and Vicki). Once again, we're all winners this year
-Most excitingly, picking up a TV antenna, which brought ABC, CBS, and NBC to our home for a one-time fee of $14.97. I'm watching football right now. Why didn't we do this months ago?

And to Nugget (Fausto?):
I'm never gonna know you now/
But I'm gonna love you anyhow

Merry Christmas!

2007-10-09T07:50:00.000-04:00

Thanks and hugs to Fausto Carmona, CC Sabathia, Paul Byrd, Grady Sizemore, Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, the Raffys... heck, even Joe Borowski. For the seventh straight postseason, the Y*****s are $200,000,000 losers. An odd twist this year that the Indians would beat the Y*****s on Columbus Day. This will be the first year of those seven in which I'll be rooting against the team that conquered evil in the next round. What a postseason!

I went to Mike's bachelor party in the Poconos this weekend, reunited with the guys, and played a ton of darts, ping-pong, baseball, frisbee (sorry, AJ), horseshoes, and even a bush league home run derby, which I won by the skin of my teeth. Another taxing trip on this old body, but the weekend was worth the 22 hours in the car.

Oh, and did I mention the Y*****s won't be playing in the ALCS? Or that Roger C*****s may never pitch again? Kiss a baby today.

Balls and Decks

2007-09-29T17:52:00.001-04:00

September is almost over, which makes it difficult to talk about anything other than baseball in this space, but I'm sure you'd much rather hear about the deck. I cleaned it today to prep it for staining tomorrow. For those keeping score at home, that's two trips to Home Depot in two days, a feat not accomplished since the early days of 13 Pond. My back and knees hurt constantly, I sleep against a headboard, and our first mortgage payment is due on Monday. I'm getting old.

In an attemp to curb the effects of aging, I'm trying to take up tennis again. I played a few times this summer, but just as summer came to an end, I found two guys right at my level. Before and after doubles with Matthew yesterday, I played some epic singles tiebreakers with Sean and Khoa, perhaps a sign of tennis to come. Did I mention my knees and back hurt constantly?

Look Ma, No Hands, our kickball team for the fall season, moved to 4-0 with a 3-1 win on Thursday. I pitched a complete game with impeccable defense behind me, including a highlight-reel catch by the wife at second base. Look out, WAKA, Look Ma means business.

And finally, baseball. The Red Sox clinched the division last night in improbable fashion, a Mariano Rivera meltdown letting the Orioles back in what had looked like a blowout, and losing in 10 innings, shortly after Matsuzaka and the Sox beat Minnesota. It obviously would have been a much better year in baseball if not for the Y*****s' late-season surge, but I'll take a division title for the Sox and a tough Cleveland team throwing Sabbathia and Carmona twice each in an attempt to knock the evil out of the playoffs early.

At a few points this season, I said that if the Sox blew their division lead, I'd give up on AL baseball and focus on the Mets or Padres. Glad I didn't turn my attention to the Mets. Here's hoping, as the Nationals try to close out the Phillies tonight, that the Phils lose another one tomorrow and John Maine's near-no-hitter today ends up meaning something.

That is all.

Fall in Maine

2007-09-17T12:18:00.000-04:00

Sweet Christ, it's cold. 45 when I got in my car this morning, maybe a few degrees warmer in the bathroom when I turned the shower off. The goal is not to turn the heat on until November 15. I'll be proud to make it to October 1. I raked leaves yesterday for the first time at the new house, and my back is paying for it today. Bring on the snow shovels.

Before the cold set in, we had Kim and Matt up for a trip to LL Bean, a Sox game at Dewey's, our first dinner at J's, and drinks with Colleen at Brian Boru. We're trying to sell them on Portland, and may have made some progress.

The previous weekend was our last at Cobbosseecontee, one we spent lounging on the porch and in the water before bringing in the dock and rafts and boats on a rainy Sunday morning. Hope we can get up there three times every summer.

Before that, it was Nick and Heather's wedding in Boulder. A gorgeous venue for a classy affair, and a song list summit to boot. We went the dangerous bachelor-party-the-night-before-the-wedding route, which made the mile-high wedding day frisbee all the more exhausting, but we may have introduced "the paperwork carrot" (which perhaps I'll explain in this space one day) into the local lexicon, so the weekend will be remembered fondly.

I'm getting pretty sick of American League baseball. I'd turn my attention to the NL, but watching the Phillies sweep the Mets again wouldn't be much better. Is another Red Sox-Y*****s ALCS around the corner? I'll take the paperwork carrot.

Still Blogging!

2007-08-27T17:04:00.000-04:00

In case anyone mistook my confusion over the Red Sox signing of Eric Gagne for prophecy, I had no idea he would be so atrocious. I only thought he was unnecessary. As it turns out, the Sox would almost certainly be 11 1/2 games up, with the division locked up by now, if they hadn't signed him. It's hard to complain about an 8 1/2 game lead, but it's just as hard to root for a team so dissatisfied with a $150MM payroll and a double-digit lead that it needs to shop for players like Gagne too.

Anyway, I last wrote in this space in July, which means that unless we have some sort of direct human contact, you don't know about my visit from the family and the trip to Lake Cobbosseecontee therewithin, my visit with Jill's family to a beach house in Gloucester, or the phenomenal help we got from Linda, Byron, Vicki, Brett, Mike P., Amy, Mike B., Jeff, and Colleen on Saturday's moving day. As is customary, moving day was the hottest day of the summer, a 90+ scorcher sandwiched between weeks of 70-degree days and 50-degree nights. But then, if we don't have that human contact, do you really want to know?

I suppose there are tidbits of news I'm omitting by writing a monthly entry, half of which complains about a goateed Canadian who can't get three outs. I guess I'm not too good at this anymore. Read The Onion instead.

Gagne?

2007-07-31T21:19:00.000-04:00

Thoughts while wondering why the best bullpen in baseball needed Eric Gagne:

Jill and I bought a house in South Portland. This is less a thought than a fact. We move in August 25thish.

Saw the Simpsons movie last night. It was everything it could be... as funny as an early-nineties episode, satirically liberal without being preachy, and "filmed" like a blockbuster to mitigate the potential alienating feeling of watching television on a big screen.

The auditors are at UWGP, which means we've closed the fiscal year and my lateish nights are done for a while.

With allofmp3 shut down, I found another web site where I can buy music, and bought a couple hundred songs in the last few nights. Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours", which I've considered buying for years but never did, stands out among the throngs of newly released albums we picked up. Still struggling to find 15 songs worthy of nomination for this year's song list.

I still love chocolate chip cookies.

10,000 Days

2007-07-18T17:54:00.001-04:00

Not sure how I forgot to mention this in my last post, but the wife took me to see every librarian's favorite band, Tool, last Friday at the Cumberland County Civic Center (heretofore CuCoCiCe). Not my kind of show, I suppose, but a phenomenal display nonetheless, in support of their most recent album, 10,000 Days. While rocking out to songs I didn't know, I had a near-epiphany and started crunching numbers in my head. As it turns out, last Tuesday was the 10,000th day of my life.

It made me think of the 100th day celebrations we used to have at school to celebrate something like 55% of the school year being over. 100 days back then was an eternity- long enough to change your vocabulary, your musical tastes, your sports allegiances, basically your whole identity. Now I've been through 100 periods of 100 days. And I'm as capricious as ever. Today I'm trying to buy a house. 100 days ago, I was filming a movie that may never be edited and I had never coached a baseball team or played beer league kickball. 100 days before that I was new to Portland, living alone and drinking all the free beer I could handle at United Way happy hours. 100 days before that, Jill was in China and I was trying to tolerate my old job, find a new one, and sell her albatross of a house. Another 100 days back, we were newlyweds, living it up in San Diego, drinking red ales on the beach at noon.

Where will I be 100 days from today? Time will tell, but I've got big plans. And lists to make.

July

2007-07-16T21:28:00.000-04:00

I don't think anyone reads this anymore, but I need to keep myself posted for my Top 25 Moments feature at the end of the year. Since my last post, the run of aboveaverageness ended for Rick is 21, a 2-7 team disguised as a contender for much of the season. We went down, 5-1 in the quarterfinals, to a team we'd beaten in the regular season. I got to officiate the semis and finals (the matchup everyone wanted to see, thanks to two semifinal upsets) and was later invited to join the national head ref pool, for which I hope I can make time next year.

Jill and I kicked the house search into high gear and made an offer on a split-level in South Portland. After some negotiating, denial, innapropriate questioning, and merciful begging, we're still where we were last week.

John Maine didn't make the All-Star game. Not sure why.

We entertained a houseful of Jeffreys this weekend. My chest saw the sun for the first time in a year... with sexy results... at Scarboro beach, we enjoyed a Sea Dogs victory, and we finally caught dinner around 9:45 at Andy's (formerly Nappi's) after being thwarted by the rest of Portland's restaurants.

That's all I've got.

Happy Birthday America, Colleen

2007-07-05T15:31:00.000-04:00

I only hope when I'm 231 and on my deathbed, seven years into a debilitating disease that attacks my nervous system and goes after my brain, people gather together to celebrate my miraculous birth and all my past glory by clapping and cheering at something as inane as fireworks. Happy birthday, USA. Sure do love that day off.

Happy birthday also to one of Portland's newest residents, Colleen, who moved this weekend into a cute downtown-ish apartment. Look out Maine, the O'Connors are creeping back.

Separate Ways

2007-06-24T12:20:00.000-04:00

I can't watch baseball (or anything, for that matter) on TV at home. We haven't gotten to a Sea Dogs game yet. Still, my summer so far has been spent on diamonds, playing kickball, coaching baseball, and following this potentially magical baseball season any way I can.

I'll dispense with the unpleasantness first. My Babe Ruth team is 1-14, in desperate need of a pitcher who can consistenly get batters out, a catcher who can occasionally throw a runner out, and a few outfielders who can catch a ball. I'm hoping to witness a win today, when we play the only team we've beaten this season (a game for which I was out of town). Playoffs start tomorrow, and I have a sneaking suspicion they'll end sometime around 8:00 tomorrow night.

In much more pleasant news, Rick is 21 won this Thursday, moving to 4-2-1 on the season and holding onto our tenuous grasp of fourth place. If we can win or tie this Thursday, we're likely to finish fourth out of twelve, good for a much-needed bye into the second week of playoff activity.

On a somewhat related note, interleague baseball wraps up today, and I won't miss it. Mismatches between high-octane American League lineups and untested National League pitchers aside, there are still so many reasons to get rid of interleague play. Schedules are horribly unbalanced, to the point where one team may cruise through all of its interleague games against sub-.500 teams, while a team in the same division may be tested by several better teams, then miss the playoffs by a game.

Most egregious, though, is the lack of a consistent designated hitter rule. I'm pro-DH, but even someone on the other side of the DH argument has to agree that it doesn't make sense to have two teams whose rosters are designed under different rules playing against each other. Case in point, with the Red Sox in San Diego this weekend, they'll sit Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, and David Ortiz (arguably their three best hitters this season) for a game apiece, while three pitchers who haven't taken BP all season get to hack away against professional pitchers. Last night, the Sox put two on with no outs against the phenomenal Chris Young (their only scoring threat against him all game), only to watch Doug "Every Fifth Day" Mirabelli, Julio "Hitting .196" Lugo, and Tim "I Got a Few Hits With the '92 Pirates" Wakefield strike out in succession to end the inning.

National League baseball- it's like soccer, without the riots.

Movie Awards

2007-06-22T12:11:00.000-04:00

The 2007 QHS Movie Awards are here!

How strange that they'd come out in the same week as the American Films Institute released its 10th Anniversary Top 100 American Films of All-Time. I swear, we didn't plan this. I see some Netflix queues getting a lot bigger this week.

Updates

2007-06-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

A lot going on since I last rapped at ya, but not much of a blogworthy nature. The Babe Ruth team is 1-9 and puts in about as much effort as the Phillies in last fall's Abreu trade. We're hitting .300 as a team, but making about an error an inning.

In kickball news, we took a hard loss last night in a game we could have won with the right personnel. The loss dropped us to 3-2-1, still good for fourrth place out of twelve. I haven't had an extra-base kick since sustaining a concussion sliding into home three weeks ago, but the team has picked up my slack, offensively.

In apartment search news, it's looking more and more like we'll be on Ashmont Street for another two months, since our place hasn't been rented and our window is closing on the place we really want. At least we don't have to move in two weeks.

In fish news, we welcomed Simon and Manuela to the family earlier this week, just in time to find Cady decaying on the aquarium floor. Manuela was dead by the next morning, but Simon was still kicking when I left for work this morning.

That's all I've got.

Additions

2007-05-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

Happy birth to Addison Lila Carey. Congratulations to Kristen and Tyler, parents of a second daughter as of this morning.

Addili, if you're reading this years from now (probably on a computer so large and so expensive that you'll have to borrow it from one of the five richest kings in Europe), I apologize that you'll have to share billing with certain lesser events. I've been busy.

Last Thursday, during a UWA Staff Leaders' Conference, I visited PNC Park in Pittsburgh, the ninth major league ballpark I've been inside. Since Olympic Stadium is obsolete, the Dodgers got rained out when I was there (what are the odds?), and the strike prevented me from seeing a game in Toronto, I still have 24 stadiums to go. National League baseball is a sad excuse for a professional sport (the Pirates and Marlins combined for 7 errors and 11 walks), but the park is as gorgeous as advertised.

The previous weekend, Eric and Shayna were married in a near-perfect ceremony on a perfect day in Saratoga. I was honored to hold the new Schroecchione bling, speak briefly at the reception, and grace the new couple with a surprise tap dance. I only made one enemy in the process.

My kickball team, Rick is 21, which I don't think I've mentioned in this space, is still 1-0-1 after a field-scheduling conflict postponed last Thursday's game. I never would have guessed we'd be undefeated going into week four.

My Babe Ruth team, CPort Credit Union, is still 1-1 after a "wet-field" postponement on Sunday. Our entering week four with only one loss is equally miraculous.

That is all.

Problem Is...

2007-05-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

Upon our arrival in Dublin, Jill and I ask two friendly trash collectors to point us toward Rob's apartment, near Gonzaga College and down the street from McSorley's pub. "Problem is," the less leprechaunly one says in an accent that melts Jill's heart right through the stench of morning trash, "your friend lives in Ranelagh, and you're in Donnybrook". Thinking we're in the wrong part of town entirely, and not thrilled about the prospect of calling Rob from a glass case of emotion at 6:30 am, we look at each other in despair.

"The good news is," says the same bloke, taking a step to his left, "if you walk down this street about two hundred yards (conveniently converted to American football measurements!) and take a right, and go another twenty-to-forty yards, you'll see your friend's place."

He's wrong on more than one count, but what better welcome to the Emerald Isle than an early-morning brogue chauffering us from terror to relief and back to confusion in a matter of seconds?

If I had the time and the energy, I'd take you through every moment of our five-day trip, but with all the planning that lies ahead for this weekend's Schroecchione union, it may be best to cut to the web gems.

A quick debrief: In Ireland, Coke and Pepsi are called "Guinness" and "Murphy's". Tom Cruise and Meg Ryan are called "James Joyce" and "Oscar Wilde". The dollar is called "sixty-four cents".

We visited the Guinness Brewery (maybe the highlight of the whole trip) on Sunday, the Murphy's Brewery (now Heineken Ireland, and not open for tours) on Monday, and the Jameson distillery (maybe Jill's highlight) on Tuesday. I hiked the cliffs of Howth with Rob and Jill on Saturday and Dublin's south shore with Rob and Rodrigo on Tuesday. We took a bus to Cork on Monday for my introduction to the green part of the country, a disappointing visit to Murphy's, and an entertaining couple of pints with Claire.

Tuesday night's literary pub crawl brought our total "pubs visited" count to 17. We did not count pints consumed, tips inadvertently left for said pints, Y*****s losses celebrated in the wee hours, or Irishwomen ogled, shattering my concept of Irish girls as homely, pale-skinned redheads. I suppose it would be most appropriate (by which I mean, incredibly lame) to end this post with a hearty

Slainte!

Hooray for Wood!

2007-04-23T17:03:00.000-04:00

New York City takes a step in the right direction.

How Pleasant

2007-04-22T21:16:00.000-04:00

Jill and I joined Amy and Mike yesterday for a hike up Pleasant Mountain. I agreed to hiking without immediately associating the words "hike" and "mountain," and as a result, scaled a 1900-foot peak, shattering my mountain-climbing record by 1964 feet. Over the course of a 3 1/2-mile stroll, I experienced the following emotions:

10 feet high- anxiety
200 feet- pleasantness
205 feet- first knee pain
800 feet- inspiration
1200 feet- regret
1500 feet- snowiness
1850 feet- terror
1875 feet- ambition
1900 feet- elation
1750 feet- slipperiness
1500 feet- severe knee pain
1000 feet- exhaustion
600 feet- hip pain
250 feet- helplessness
25 feet- relief
ground zero- success, further knee pain

The legs are feeling surprisingly strong today. Perhaps they draw inspiration from the second straight 55+ degree day they've seen. Perhaps they were energized by the hamburgers and hot dogs I grilled this afternoon, the first use of the grill since it materialized from a snowy abcess on the back porch. Perhaps they're excited to be smashed into an airplane seat on the way to and from Ireland this weekend, or to help me boogie down at Eric's wedding in three weeks. I just hope I'm still standing by then.

Some Weather We're Having

2007-04-16T23:10:00.000-04:00

April 4- snow, 8 inches
April 12- snow, 3 inches
April 15- snow flurries, heavy rain and wind
April 16- cold rain, 80 mph winds

Where's this global warming I keep hearing about?

Dingertime

2007-03-29T15:33:00.000-04:00

Sure, there's still relevant college basketball to be played, but by the time that's over, there will have been meaningful baseball games played as well. I picked the final four correctly for the first time ever, so I'll try my hand at this year's baseball season:

AL

New York, 95-67
Boston, 94-68
Toronto, 87-75
Baltimore, 74-88
Tampa Bay, 71-91

Cleveland, 96-66
Detroit, 90-72
Minnesota, 88-74
Chicago, 85-77
Kansas City, 58-104

LA of Anaheim, 85-77
Oakland of Fremont, 82-80
Texas, 72-90
Seattle, 68-94

NL

New York, 94-68
Philadelphia, 88-74
Atlanta, 84-78
Florida, 73-89
Washington, 51-111

St. Louis, 84-78
Milwaukee, 83-79
Houston, 81-81
Chicago, 79-83
Cincinnati, 78-84
Pittsburgh, 75-87

Los Angeles, 91-71
San Diego, 85-77
Arizona, 84-78
Colorado, 80-82
San Francisco, 75-87

Boston 3, Cleveland 2
LA of Anaheim 3, New York (evil) 2

New York (NL) 3, St. Louis 2
Los Angeles (NL) 3, Philadelphia 2

Boston 4, LA of Anaheim 2
Los Angeles (NL) 4, New York (NL) 3

Boston 4, Los Angeles (NL) 0

AL MVP- Travis Hafner (.307, 40 HR, 138 RBI)
AL CY- Johan Santana (21-4, 2.26 ERA, 220 K)

NL MVP- Albert Pujols (.342, 47 HR, 146 RBI)
NL CY- Roy Oswalt (17-8, 3.16 ERA, 228 K)

You may notice that my MVP and Cy Young picks are all the same guys I picked last year- one (Santana) successfully, and one (Pujols) correctly, but somehow not successfully. However, I've never picked the Red Sox to win the World Series before this year. I liked this pick more with Papelbon in the starting rotation, but I still don't see anyone beating them in a playoff series.

Let the dingers begin.

Tom Waits' First Nine Album Titles If He Had Used the Same Naming Conventions as Rick(y) Nelson

2007-03-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

1. Tommy
2. Teen Time
3. Tommy Waits
4. Tommy Sings Again
5. Songs by Tommy
6. More Songs by Tommy
7. Tom is 21
8. Album Seven by Tom
9. Tom Waits Sings "For You"

...and a few later ones...

Spotlight on Tom
Another Side of Tom
Tom Sings Waits

He majored in Gorgonzology

2007-03-13T10:48:00.000-04:00

Over a tower of Newcastle at the Great Lost Bear on Saturday night, I challenge Jill to name 15 Division I schools in Texas (isn't that what most couples do at bars?). She struggles after three or four, so I start giving her clues. For instance:

My cousin-in-law, Dave, went there.
It's in Houston.
It's named after food.

Jill's face lights up as she finishes a sip of beer. "Cheese?"

It's that time of year. Cheese U. faces Indiana University Purdue University at Southeastern Elkhart County in tonight's play-in game, and the real madness begins at noon on Thursday.

If you want to get in my pool and haven't gotten an email from me, send one to my gmail account and I'll get you a bracket and the rules. I'm hoping for 50+ people at $10 an entry, so there's good money to win.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2007-03-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ah, March. It's Championship Week, which, while exciting in its own right, is most alluring as a harbinger of the NCAA Tournament to come. That's right, it's almost pool time, bitches!

At the same time, baseball teams are in Florida and Arizona, pitching two innings at a time, being pulled after two at-bats, and trying to catch a glimpse of Daisuke Matsuzaka and Alex Gordon. Within a month, they'll be taking their hacks at Fenway and Wrigley and Bank of America Field by KPMG Peat Marwick, home of the San Francisco Razrs with Unlimited Mobile-to-Mobile Minutes.

Perhaps most enticing is the promise of spring in Maine, just a month around the corner. Or is it two months?

Or three?

27 and Airborne

2007-02-25T20:13:00.000-05:00

So I decided to spend my 27th birthday in St. Louis, at a users' group conference for UW's fundraising software. It seemed like the only appealing choice at the time. After sixteen hours on airplanes in three days, I can't help but wonder if I made the wrong choice.

It started at 4:00 on Wednesday morning, when my alarm went off in the total darkness of my bedroom. I must have fallen asleep in the shower, since I hadn't eaten breakfast or changed out of my slippers when Jane called from my driveway at 4:40. Matthew was kind enough to drop Jane and me off at PWI, where we waited in our first airport line of the week, ditched our liquids over 3.4 ounces, and took off for Detroit, our first layover.

By 8:00, we were hovering over Detroit, in good shape to make our connection to St. Louis. I suppose I should have chosen a layover in Atlanta or Houston, somewhere mired under less fog and ice than Detroit. After suggesting that we may divert to Saginaw or Traverse City, our pilot graciously rerouted us to Pittsburgh, the nearest airport with sufficient visability to land.

After an hour on the tarmac, we were assured that there would be a client service representative waiting on the runway to help us all with out connections. There were, in fact, two. And hundreds of people waiting to be helped. By 1:10, after two hours in line, we were told that another flight to Detroit had opened up, and that we could be on it if we hurried. We did, and by 3:20, we were at the Detroit airport, where we each ran an escalator-aided four-minute mile, reaching terminal A in time to catch a 3:30 to St. Louis, where we would arrive just after the conference ended for the day. My suitcase, however, was not so lucky.

A dozen wings at the hotel bar at 6:30 were the first meal Jane and I ate, 14 hours into our trip. Best wings ever. We met up with Andy, ate dinner at a Thai place on Washington Ave, and called it an early night. Between inquiries to the concierge and Northwest Airlines (which they do abbreviate NWA, in case you were wondering) as to the whereabouts of my bag, I called my dad to wish him a happy birthday and let Jill know I'd made it safely to my king bed, where I would wake up at 6:30, refreshed and 27.

After a day of seminars, networking, and the arrival of my luggage, I spent the afternoon taking in the Gateway City. The new Busch Stadium's entire field is visible from the street, and the Arch is every bit as archy as advertised. I contemplated the scenic tour to the top, but it would have made me late for dinner with Mike and Jenn. The newlyweds picked me up at the hotel and took me to the Schlafly Brewery, a perfect spot for microbrews, bar food, and rehashing thirteen years of suburban complacency and everything we've learned about the real world since. Later on, Jane and Andy met me in the hotel bar with a piece of cake and a candle, and each bought me a birthday scotch. I responded to several phone calls and text messages (thanks to all who remembered) and went to bed.

On Friday, I caught breakfast and one last best practices seminar before another jaunt into St. Louis. The municipal section of town is flush with statues of anonymous St. Lunatics, all pointing the way to the city's most unexpected attraction, the Bowling/St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame. I stopped by with about an hour to burn and spent 45 minutes in awe of Cool Papa Bell, Dizzy Dean, Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, and the appallingly mediocre 2006 team that won 82 games and one World Series. I took a quick jog through the history of bowling and decided it would be foolish not to cash in my four free frames. After three straight spares, I slapped down a dollar and finished the game, speeding my way to a 111.

I raced back to the hotel to check out and grabbed lunch with Jane and Andy. After lunch, we learned that flights out of Newark, the site of our return connection, were severely backed up, so much so that we wouldn't be able to take our scheduled flight and get back to Portland that night. Jane worked her magic on the phone, put NWA in its place, and got us confirmed on an earlier flight, so we hopped in a cab, crossed our fingers, and flew to Newark, where we would spend four hours looking for a serviceable restaurant (no dice) and chatting at the Sam Adams Brew House before boarding our final flight. Already two hours late, we were informed by the pilot that we were thirty-fifth in line on the runway. Seventy minutes later, we were in the air, jammed into seats built for one-armed dwarves for the last time all weekend. I was thrilled to see Jill waiting just outside when we landed just before midnight.

By week's end, I'd spent enough time on planes to take me to Eastern Europe or South America and back, all for four donor choice seminars and a dozen delicious chicken wings. Happy birthday to me.

"Was it a black guy? That's George!"

2007-02-14T20:48:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day happenings in the O'Connor household:

Jill wakes up at 5:30, learns that the Portland Public Library has canceled their tax assistance program due to inclement weather, and promptly cancels the CA$H program for the day. Minutes later, she turns my alarm clock off, silently telling me that the UW offices are closed for the day. Not half bad.

I get out of bed around 10:30 to tend to a few payroll-related items and make breakfast (egg sandwiches for me and a half grapefruit for Jill). Jill stays in bed until I drag her out sometime after 11:30.

When UW payroll is taken care of, we watch the rest of "The Shining," during which I'd fallen asleep last night. Stanley Kubrick's take on Stephen King's horror, which I'd improbably never seen in full. A solid A-.

Just before 1, I decide to shovel the walkway and sidewalk, just to be sure the mailman can bring us a day's supply of Netflix. Sure enough, "The Departed" is here, a day after it's debut on DVD. Is there anything Netflix can't do?

Lunch is leftover taco pie from the previous night. A delicious 'tween-movie snack. And to answer the question I'd asked 2 1/2 hours earlier, Netflix can't make a decent flick out of "The Departed," a gratuitously violent stroking of Martin Scorsese's ego, with utter disrespect to human life and thought, the passing of time, and the Boston accent.

After way too much bloody tripe, we take a break at the Great Lost Bear, downing a tower of Harpoon Hibernian (or was it "Valentine Red Ale?"), some Irish nachos, and a game of "who would play each member of our respective families in a film?", all of which would have been free if Jill hadn't tracked down our reclusive waitress on our way out of the building.

Once outside, we ran into a flustered gentlemen, who asked us if we lived nearby, and when we said yes, assumed that we could drive him home. Our driveway still lost under most of a foot of snow, we couldn't, so we walked on, only to find his Grand Am stuck in a very manageable amount of snow on the corner of Ashmont and Forest. Our senses of philanthropy heightened by a few Valentine Reds, I kicked the snow out from around his tires and we went back to the Bear to find him. We asked the happy host, who said he hadn't seen anybody, until something clicked in his brain:

"Was it a black guy?

"Yeah."

"That's George!"

Why didn't we mention that it was Maine's African American whose car we wanted to rescue? George was summoned from the Black VIP section and told us that his car wasn't stuck, but that he'd locked his keys in his car. Enough said. We went home, satisfied with our meager attempt at philanthropy and ready to chow down on a delicious crockpot-cooked pork and watch "Flashdance". Hey, it can't be worse than "The Departed".

The Long Red Carpet

2007-02-03T09:12:00.000-05:00

Imagine it's Oscar night. There's a particular buzz in the air, not unlike the usual Oscar buzz, but a little more palpable, a little more grand. The type of buzz that comes from a Best Actor lineup like this:

Brando. Deniro. Nicholson. Pacino.

Can't think of a year when all four of the greatest actors of the last half-century made a film, let alone an Oscar-worthy performance? If you said no, you're probably right, but this isn't your typical Oscar night.

Imagine Julianne Moore, nominated for Best Actress, trying to scribble an adequate acceptance speech in case she beats out Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek, and Maria Falconetti, a woman who died before every speaking a word on camera (or drawing a negative review).

Imagine Almodovar and Jeunet hobnobbing with Fellini and Antonioni, all nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Then there's Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen, masters of their craft today, wondering if they have the funny to compete with W.C. Fields and Peter Sellers.

Christopher Walken is present, cracking jokes at a round table with Anthony Hopkins and James Caan. Francis Ford Coppola is beaming, having directed the only movie with to garner two nominations. Sellers and Brando are the other double nominees, each honored as an actor and for a character he portrayed.

This is the latest project in the QHS 200 series. Rather than a small group of us ranking our 100 favorite movies and creating one master list, we went a more democratic route. The original voters spent a few months nominating films from any time and place in each of eight categories, and this weekend, we open up the voting (a four-month process itself) to the public. In June, we'll unveil the winners in each of these categories:

Best Performance (Male)
Best Performance (Female)
Best Comedic Performance
Best Fictional Character
Best Death Scene
Best Nude Scene
Best Use of Music in a Film
Best Foreign Language Film

If you're interested in a full ballot, email me and start filling up your Netflix queue. All I ask is that if you want to vote in a category, you watch all four films nominated in that category. The voting deadline is June 6.

Let the games begin.

Jill Has a Job, and Other Musings

2007-01-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

Since Jill won't tell you about it herself, I might as well mention that she has joined the UW team. Last month, she took a nights-and-weekends gig as Site Coordinator for the UW's CA$H program, which offers free tax-prep assistance to low-income and elderly families and individuals. Just before the program started last weekend, the Program Manager stepped down, at least temporarily (get well, Felix), so Jill took a full-time position managing the program. Starting this Friday, Jill will be in the office most days, which means that I've still never had a full-time, post-college job without an O'Connor woman within 100 feet of my desk.

Meanwhile, we're three weeks into filming, and now that we've got some snow, everything's going as well as can be expected. This weekend, we brought in the pros, and Chuck and Cynthia didn't disappoint, each nailing one day's worth of filming. Expect a release this fall.

Congrats to Peyton Manning and the Colts on their 2004 ALCS-esque win the other night. That was the best NFL game I've seen in six years.

Maine is cold, finally. Very cold.

James A. O'Connor, 1917-2006

2007-01-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

My grandfather died on New Year's Eve. I wish I could write about war stories he told me over trips to the ballgame or his account of the depression and how his warnings affected decisions I've made. Instead, I have only snippets of memories of Grandad tending to the cow on the spit at the Oconderosa and telling me that "awesome" had a different meaning to his generation than to mine. As sad as this may be at a time when I need to remember him fondly, the reason our visits tended to be brief and impersonal encapsulates the two defining values that Grandad embodied in his 89 years: work and family.

I learned this week that my grandmother wanted three children. She got seven. He was Catholic.

Grandad was a farmer. I hope to work many full-time jobs in my life without ever having to put in farmers' hours. But farmers' hours weren't always enough to feed and educate a family of nine, so when he had finished his military service, Grandad worked another full-time job, as Maintenance Supervisor at the Nestle factory. Even when he had retired and the family took vacation time and got together, Grandad was always working- herding and deworming and dehorning the cattle and harvesting the corn and mowing acres of lawn and fields. He knew no lifestyle but a hard-working one. He never had a choice.

Back to those seven children. Have you ever known a family with seven children that didn't have at least one outcast? One child inevitably disowns her parents or stops coming to family weddings or adopts a lifestyle of which his parents don't approve, right? My grandfather's seven children, all successful and very busy, live in seven states all over the country, but every one of them was on a plane to dreary Fulton, NY within days of Grandad's death, sharing stories and adulation. Every one of them found time to entertain the next generation of kids and to share anecdotes about Grandad with those too young to have known him well. Every one of them was at my wedding last spring and at my cousin Beth's the previous summer.

These seven children brought, in one way or another, twenty grandchildren into my grandfather's life. The twenty of us are spread all over the country and beyond, some small children, some teens, others in our twenties and thirties, some with families of our own, but we're united by one link: we'd all drop everything for a weekend together at the family farm, especially in honor of Grandad's memory. More than anything, that sense of family speaks to the values my grandparents instilled in us, simply by hosting beef roasts and Christmases, inviting scores of kids and adults into their home for as long as we wanted to stay, and by accepting all of us for what we became- doctors, engineers, educators, traveling salesmen, accountants, jesuits, protestants, unitarians, baseball players, fencers, horseback riders, swimmers, math league champs, parents, foster parents, divorcees, southerners, drinkers, Irishwomen, and Kenyan camp counselors- and embracing these attributes and these decisions.

My father inherited Grandad's work ethic. Whether he's driving hundreds of miles to consult with a paper mill or out in his new garage, hammering nails, he's always working on something. In the family department, he's shaping up to be the proud patriarch his father was, hosting our growing family in the castle he built with a briefcase and an ability to stay awake for a twelve-hour drive.

I never had a long chat with my grandfather about the Super Bowl or 80/20 mortgages or balancing a job and a family. I didn't inherit his willingness to wake up before the sun and get in five hours of manual labor before work. But I do have a vivid picture in my mind of what it means to be a man, a husband, a father, and a friend. And if I ever forget, I still have my dad.

Moments

2006-12-27T17:28:00.000-05:00

I'm coming to you from Oak Ridge, North Carolina, where my parents have shown Jill and I a most extravagant take on southern hospitality. Let's call this year's epic Christmas journey, which has so far taken us to Dudley and Framingham, MA, and will continue in Somerville, MA, Wethersfield, CT, and Brooklyn before we return to Portland, the 26th most memorable moment of my year.

For the top 25 moments, click here.

30 Albums

2006-12-21T18:42:00.000-05:00

Around this time every year, I release the QHS 200, a composite list of my friends' top albums of all time. This year, we decided that the list had gotten stale and needed an extra year to grow, so we chose instead to focus on next year's revolutionary movie list.

Not one to deprive my readers of an albums list, I decided to take a new look at my favorite albums- not the best of all time per se, but the ones I'm most likely to rock on the iPod at any given moment. A few old standbys, a few new favorites, and nothing by The Beatles. Here goes:

30. Scattered Longings, Matt Spence, 2003
29. Aenima, Tool, 1996
28. Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z, 1996
27. Doolittle, The Pixies, 1989
26. When the Pawn..., Fiona Apple, 1999
25. Otis Blue, Otis Redding, 1966
24. Horses, Patti Smith, 1976
23. On Avery Island, Neutral Milk Hotel, 1996
22. The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1967
21. Mermaid Avenue, Billy Bragg & Wilco, 1998
20. Demon Days, Gorillaz, 2005
19. Agaetis Byrjun, Sigur Ros, 1999
18. Buena Vista Social Club, 1997
17. Quality, Talib Kweli, 2002
16. Red-Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson, 1975
15. Things Fall Apart, The Roots, 1999
14. Chutes Too Narrow, The Shins, 2003
13. I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Sinead O'Connor, 1990
12. Blue, Joni Mitchell, 1971
11. Be, Common, 2005
10. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, 1998
9. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis, 1959
8. Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley, 1954-'55
7. The Queen is Dead, The Smiths, 1986
6. Something Else, Cannonball Adderly, 1958
5. Late Registration, Kanye West, 2005
4. Let it Be, The Replacements, 1984
3. Illinoise, Sufjan Stevens, 2005
2. Tigermilk, Belle and Sebastian, 1996
1. Enter the Wu-Tang/36 Chambers, Wu-Tang Clan, 1993

Five Songs... or Twenty

2006-12-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

Nick suggests that "'In Random Rules, The A.V. Club asks some of its favorite people to set their MP3 players to shuffle and comment on the first few tracks that come up—no cheating or skipping embarrassing tracks allowed.' Based on the honor system, this could prove a nice little jolt to our languishing blog community."

I couldn't agree more, and I haven't seen a post like this around the web ring yet, so I thought I'd get us started. BrainPod is set to shuffle, and...

1. "God Save the Queen," The Sex Pistols, from "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here Come the Sex Pistols"
I suppose every teen goes through a punk phase, but there's more to that than the Sex Pistols. What better snapshot of the late 70s is there than the group that brought punk to the right side of the Atlantic and fizzled out as the 80s interrupted? Pissed off and void of any sentiment other than a raw disdain for authority, The Sex Pistols were nonetheless musicians. A good start.

2. "Lay Down Your Weary Tune," Bob Dylan, from "Biograph"
Certainly fitting that a Dylan tune sneaks in, with about twenty Dylan albums in the pod. "Biograph" was a birthday gift from my roommates my sophomore year of college. I don't remember a precedent for this... seems like a birthday gift in college was always a handle of Captain Morgan or a Bentley-registered keg, but Brad, Fraenza, and Gallagher- not a Dylan fan among them- chose instead, in a flash of brilliance, to honor my twentieth by introducing me to a bunch of Dylan singles and album tracks from eras I wouldn't have otherwise explored. Another great song.

3. "I Wonder," The Ronnettes, from "The Best of the Ronnettes"
Can't say I expected back-to-back songs from hits collections. I remember listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack (on cassette, and certainly against my will) in the wayback of my parents' Taurus wagon on trips to my grandparents' farm and somehow knowing, without caring who recorded it, that "Be My Baby" was a revolutionary song. When I started buying music of my own, sixties girl pop was the last thing on my list, but Eric burned me a copy of "The Best of the Ronnettes" four years ago when we lived in Brighton. Much more than one killer single, this collection is Phil Spector brilliance through and through. When do we get to the embarrassing stuff?

4. "Swamp Song," Blur, from "13"
A forgettable, but solid track from a forgettable, but solid album. Growing up in Queensbury with my friends, I had no choice but to get into Blur in the mid-to-late '90s. Starting with their self-titled fourth album, I wasn't an easy convert. I initially wanted something harder than the bubbly pop of "For Tomorrow", and something with a little more substance than "Chinese Bombs". Fortunately, my friends didn't let me get away from Blur, and I came to embrace them, particularly their unique brand of power ballad that peppered "Parklife," one of the great British album of all time. I don't listen to much Blur today, and "13" would be a third choice, but we're still on something of a roll.

5. "Angeline," PJ Harvey, from "Is This Desire?"
I burned this album from Jill's collection after Shayna included the spot-on Patti Smith impression "Good Fortune" among her nominations for the '05 songs list. I prefer the album "Rid of Me," which I picked up the same day, but the opener to "Is This Desire?" is a worthy closer to my five-song shuffle. No shame whatsoever.

I've been sick for a few days, and I'm home on my couch with nothing else to do, so I'm going to extend this experiment until I find myself in desperate need for lunch. To anyone with an iPod, a blog, and a few minutes to spare, I highly recommend this exercise. Besides, I still haven't gotten to the embarrassing part...

6. "Been Caught Stealing," Jane's Addiction, from "Ritual de lo Habitual"
Two things come to mind... one is playing this album at a "boat burning" party at my parents' house in Queensbury, just before they sold the house. Their dog, Riley went insane when the dogs barked at the opening of the song and I think I had to throw him in the basement for a while to save the women and children from the angry beast. The other is my surprise during my first attempts at making my own top 100 albums list that I had never heard an album from 1990, considering how much music I listened to from the early '90s. I devoted much of 1998 and 1999 to finding a good album from 1990, and was ready to give up before Eric came through again, burning me a copy of "Ritual." I still haven't heard many albums as ambitious, diverse, and rich as this one, although Sinead O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" has since passed it on my list.

7. "Car Song," Elastica, from "Elastica"
I still throw this album in now and then, with a new perspective since Pat got me into their prototype, Wire. A fun breeding of post-punk and Britpop, with a few memorable songs, although I could take or leave this one. Moving on...

8. "Only a Northern Song," The Beatles, from "Anthology 2"
I bought the last two Beatles anthologies at Red's Underground in Glens Falls years ago, before Red achieved notoriety for his four-for-twenty deal. As a piece of musical history, I suppose they're essential to any music fan. As a bunch of songs that may end up in an iPod shuffle, they're mostly throw-aways.

9. "Central Reservation (The Then Again Version)", Beth Orton, from "Central Reservation"
An underrated version of an underrated song from an underrated album by an underrated artist. I prefer this trip-hoppier remix to the original, as it better showcases the musician Beth Orton was billed as when "Trailer Park" dropped a few years earlier- a tech-folkie with respect for the past and a vision to the future. Even when she abandons that persona, as she often has this decade, her music has always been listenable, sometimes fantastic, but this was the album that made her, one which better not fade into obscurity as time passes.

10. "Good Morning, Heartache," Billie Holiday, from "Billie Holiday's Greatest Hits"
A collection I should listen to so much more. If only I had a lounge and a box of cigars... Subtle jazz and a soulful, often-tortured crooner begging for you to catch a fleeting glimpse into her world.

11. "Caught, Can We Get a Witness, Public Enemy, from "It Takes a Nation of Million to Hold Us Back"
This is why the iPod may be the defining invention of my lifetime. You don't hear Billie Holiday and Public Enemy in succession on any radio station I've ever heard. Maybe you shouldn't. What 'a sucker know? Chuck D and Flavor Flav were soulful, tortured, and brilliant in their own way.

12. "Crime for Crime," Ani DiFranco, from "Not a Pretty Girl"
When my music collection was married to Jill's, the most notable change was the deluge of Ani's innovative brand of folk-punk, so it's appropriate that a song from one of Jill's favorite albums would show up eventually. I still couldn't match songs to albums within "our" deep Ani DiFranco collection, but there are several great songs mixed in. This one falls closer to the "angry feminist" end of the spectrum, the end which initally kept me from embracing Ani's music, but I could do a whole lot worse within my collection. I never wanted to be a fan, but I guess I'm sold.

13. "Doin' the New Low Down," Duke Ellington, from "The Okeh Ellington"
At the height of my obsession with Charles Mingus, I asked Mark to burn me a few jazz albums, to give me an idea of Mingus's influences and contemporaries. He came through with a vengeance, sending along 23 jazz albums, including this one from the guy who influenced them all. "Low Down" is one of the best.

14. "Appels + Oranges," Smashing Pumpkins, from "Adore"
I don't know if I was more furious, ashamed, or confused when Billy Corgan, probably my favorite musician at the time, explained in a "Spin" interview in 1997 that guitars would not be at the center of the music of the future. I steadfastly refused to buy "Adore" when it came out, and turned over the "favorite rock group" title to Radiohead. It was years later, when another college roommate, Jad, burned me copies of this and "Machina- the Machines of God", before I heard the "Pumpkins of the Future" sound. My musical tastes have changed a lot since I was 17, but I still can't dig anything the Pumpkins put out post-Mellon Collie. Moving on...

15. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses", U2, from "Achtung Baby"
Talk about a falling-out with a band! I'd never been a huge fan of U2, but I owned the classic albums, and when "All That You Can't Leave Behind" exploded onto the scene with its ingenius blend of melodromatic grandeur and comfortable familiarity, I couldn't get away from tripe like "It's a Beautiful Day" and the title track. I don't know if I've willingly put on a U2 album since then. Looking back, I suppose "Achtung Baby" holds up as the best U2 album, and this is a decent song, but it's not going to sell me a U2 iPod. Time to fade away, guys.

16. "Simply Beautiful," Al Green, from "I'm Still in Love with You"
Before I met Jill, I had gone on an Al Green binge, picking up all three of his 1972-'73 albums and spinning them constantlly. Aside from "Love and Happiness," and maybe "Let's Stay Together," no song stood out from the flood of great soul tunes. Jill was excited to see "I'm Still in Love with You" in my collection and introduced me to "Simply Beautiful" in a whole new light. Let's stop there. Great song.

17. "Crazy in Love," Eminem, from "Encore"
Yeah, that's a Heart sample. And that's two years after Eminem's 15 minutes of fame expired. My brother-in-law, Joe, had downloaded this album on a computer we shared at the time, so it only made sense to throw it in the iTunes, especially after the guilty pleasure that was "The Eminem Show". No such success. I don't even know if I can get trough this one without hitting the fast forward button.

18. "We All Fall in Love Sometimes," Elton John, from "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy"
I got through my original five, so I can skip the embarrrassing stuff now, right? No? Alright, I'll use this to illustrate the difference between my 20GB iPod and the 60GB I bought after I filled up the 20. In the 20GB days, I'd import only the songs I knew I'd listen to from a marginal album like "Captain Fantastic." Then I came upon practically unlimited space and decided to throw the rest of these albums on, to see if I had been depriving myself of great songs I hadn't deemed worthy when I first imported my collection. I hadn't.

19. "My Way Home," Kanye West, from "Late Registration"
Now we're talking. I had so many problems with this album when Mark convinced me to buy it that it was almost a week before I declared it my favorite album of the year... and maybe the decade. Kanye and Common rapping over Gil Scott-Heron samples in a two-minute blur? Why not? The man can do anything... well, except sing... and he's not much of a rapper... but I can't... stop... listening.

20. "Miracle Man," Elvis Costello, from "My Aim is True"
A fitting closer, since I just picked up this album a few weeks ago. I'm just starting to get into this album, but this is certainly one of its better tracks. And on that note, I'll call it a day.

Longing for the Oldies

2006-11-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

If my first eleven weeks at the UDub were marked by one thing, it had to be the incessant oldies coming from the cubicle next door. Every day, I was nauseated by Blood, Sweat, & Tears' "Ride, Captain Ride" and some awful song about Cherokee people- so proud to die!. Of course, I also got four different Beatles songs at 4:00 every day and gained a new appreciation for the Hollies and some of Chicago's early work.

I learned this morning that weeks twelve through fifteen will be entirely oldies-free. The station has switched to a 24-hour Christmas station, and the old man next door doesn't seem to have noticed. It's not even 2:00 and I've heard a Christmas original from Britney Spears, the worst Christmas song I've ever heard, "performed" by what I can only assume was Clay Aiken, and "Feliz Navidad" twice. Some towns can't put Christmas trees or nativity scenes up anymore and most public schools can't have Christmas concerts anymore, but nobody's stepping in to assure that I don't have to hear Amy Grant sing "Sleigh Ride" twice a day for a month. Christ.

On a happier note, I had a lovely Thanksgiving with the Jeffreys in Framingham. Food was plentiful and delicious, mornings were full of sleep, and evenings were full of alcohol. Jill and I caught the hilarious new Christopher Guest movie, "For Your Consideration", on Saturday, in between Jack Arnold's burritos and Vietnamese food with Nick and Heather in Allston, and were able to relax in our home on Sunday. Not half bad.

Riding in Cars With Boys... and Girls

2006-11-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

Despite cutting my daily commute from roughly 100 minutes to under ten, I found a way to spend well over forty hours in one vehicle or another over the past ten days. Let me explain.

On Friday, November 4, I took the day off from the UDub, picked up a roomy Kia Sedona from Hertz, and hit the road for a trip that's been called "epic," "bold," and most likely "retarded," through ten states and a district and into game-huntin', marriage-restrictin', car-racin', camoflouge-in-WalMart country. I picked up Jaron in Boston around 10:15am and was taking his picture with a cobb salad and a Hooters waitress in Wethersefield, CT, by noon. By 3:00, we'd merged from seven lanes to one on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for no apparent reason and gotten our first look at Jason's new Brooklyn apartment, where we picked up Jason, Mark, Nick, and Pat. Mark took the wheel and the trip was on, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Jaron's note-for-note bleating recetation of the first half of "Dookie" and everything else on the radio in the 90s, and into backwoods Virginia, where I'd rented a log cabin for the weekend.

Remarkably, we pulled into the cabin's driveway at exactly the 10:08, the same time Mike and AJ rolled in from Buffalo and Eric and David sauntered in from Staunton. Ryan and Chuck had beaten us there from Saratoga by twenty minutes. A tame night of Yuengling, T-Rex, and Trivial Pursuit ensued.

Morning brought Shayna, Liz, and a delicious breakfast from the South, and afternoon, delightfully, brought dingers. This year's derby was a sad showing all around, with the exception of an inspired performance from Pat, who blew away the field in every round, and a few bombs from runner-up Mark. Nick left satisfied with a third-place finish and Jaron shocked the world with a homer that nearly catapulted him into the second round. We were able to fit in 16 innings of baseball before the sun went down, including a game I won with a walkoff double in the ninth, and another in which the derby champ was rocked for five first-inning runs in a 7-5 loss. Jason, Nick, and Mark played for both winning teams.

Saturday evening was a classic manfest, complete with Miller High Life, burgers and dogs, more Trivial Pursuit, and competing factions of Scrabble and Asshole. Sunday morning, Eric signed derby-used baseballs for all present, and we piled back into the van for fifteen hours of fun, including an ill-conceived layover in Paterson, New Jersey to avoid a four-hour delay on the George Washington Bridge. By 3am, I was back home, unpacking the van and putting out a weekend's worth of garbage and two months' worth of recycling. After three hours of sleep, I returned the van (but not the keys) and returned to the real world (read: my bed).

I had another Friday off this past week, thanks to our brave veterans, and spent much of it sitting in Metrowest traffic on I-95, traying to get to Jill's going away party at the 'Source. I made the tail end of the party and sat in more traffic on the way out to Framingham, where we met Colleen and took off for a family weekend in Queensbury.

The weekend was marked by Lauren's adventures with Typhoid Mary, a low-hanging toilet paper roll, and a banana (all separate events), and by dirt dogs, Mattsons at LARAC, and post-Trivial Pursuit family secrets. Traffic struck again on the return, when an accident in the Berkshires left us stuck behind a deer carcass-toting Mercury for longer than necessary, but I was able to spend a few hours with my downy-haired youth (you probably had to be there) and eat my last dinner at 13 Pond Street.

I'm getting used to coming home late on Sunday nights to a wet newspaper and unfed fish, but the fish have survived, and so have I, and in five days there will be two residents at 38 Ashmont and my car can rest. And all will be well.

Memorabilia

2006-10-26T11:11:00.000-04:00

Long-time readers know that every December, I compile a list of the 25 (or so) most memorable moments in my life over the past year. At times, I've found that this blog accomplished nothing more than to remind me about some of the "memorable" moments I may have forgotten.

When I look back at 2006, it seems like everything worth mentioning happened either in April/May, when during the wedding/honeymoon phase or in September/October, during the move to Maine phase. Sadly, Jill and I have shared custody of the computer over the past few months, and the wireless internet we're "borrowing" from a neighbor comes and goes, so the majority of the moments from the latter phase have gone unbloggedabout. I'll try to touch on those moments here so that I can expand on them in my Moments feature.

-On September 9, I moved into my new apartment in Portland, leaving behind my favorite person (temporarily) and my least favorite town (permanently).
-On the 10th, Jill and I added two fish, Tony and Maria, to the family.
-On the 11th, I started work at the United Way, where the people are wonderful, the contacts are limitless, and the work, while often frustrating, matters.
-I was sick for most of my first week in Maine. Immediately after my recovery, Jill and I learned that we could walk to the Old Port and had a fantastic first weekend in Portland.
-In mid-September, I learned that there will be a new human addition to my (non-immediate) family, though I'm not sure how public this information is at this point.
-In late September, I learned that Jill and Joe had finally, officially, painstakingly sold their house. On the same day, I bought two more fish and named them Lorr*ine and A*i, after the buyer.
-On October 1st, thanks to much help from Jeff, Colleen, Scott, Beth, Byron, and Matt, Jill and I moved the majority of the contents of the house in Framingham to my new apartment in Portland. I threw my back out on the Framingham end, but was able to drive up and unload pillows and clothes on the Portland end. Most of us celebrated with a sleepy night on the town.
-The following weekend, Jill came up for a U Dub happy hour, where she met several of my associates, and particularly hit it off with Liz and Mike. We went to the Portland Pirates' opening night hockey game, where I joined several U Dub employees on the ice to accept a check from the Pirates, and capped the fantastic evening with drinks at Brian Boru.
-The very next day, the Tigers made it six in a row. I'm sure you've already read about that in this space. Jill and I celebrated with a fancy dinner on a boat. We visited several lighthouses in Cape Elizabeth on Sunday before I sent her back home.
-On October 8th and 9th, I was in the Portland Press Herald, first for the Standard U Dub new employee introduction, then to advertise the success and early returns of our campaign.
-The next weekend, I returned to Jill's mostly-empty home to decorate her basement for the following week's haunted house. In between these weekends, Tony and Ali died, leaving four fish in the aquarium.
-On October 23, Jill had her 8th annual Halloween party at Linda's place in Framingham. The party, as always was a smash hit, which would explain the feeling for most of this week that I'd been repeatedly smashed and hit.
-Yesterday, Jill picked an official last day at the 'Source, November 15, which puts her in Portland about 9 weeks after I arrived. In celebration, I added two new fish to the collection: Cosmo, a gold tuxedo swordtail, and an ugly bottom-feeder tentatively named Edgar.
-Today, I blogged about it all. I'm sure I forgot several items I might deem noteworthy. I hope you can forgive me.

Setting the record straight

2006-10-14T21:27:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine asked yesterday how I felt about Corey Lidle's death, as if I might be happy, since he was employed by the Yankees at the time of his death. I hate the Yankees, and take much pleasure in their every failure on the field. I honestly believe that baseball would be a better game if George Steinbrenner didn't exist, and that the six teams that have knocked them out of the playoffs the last six years have done a great service to the majority of Americans.

I do not, however, value their demise over human life.

Jill and I watched the end of Game 4 last Saturday at Foreplay in Portland, cheering with a handful of other patrons as Jeremy Bonderman destroyed the $200 million lineup I expected to see scoring twleve runs a game through the end of October. I spent the next hour calling anti-Yankee loved ones, revelling in another win for the good guys, and I'll spend the next twleve months relishing someone else's defense of their world championship. However, if I could go back to that moment, knowing that if the Tigers won, Corey Lidle would die, and if the Yankees won, he would live, the choice would have been easy. I would have walked away from the TV and crossed my fingers that a six-year-old boy would not grow up without a father.

Then I would have bought an A's hat and crossed them again.

While we're on the topic of baseball deaths, Buck O'Neil died last weekend. I don't find it particularly sad when a man in his nineties passes peacefully, but I cried. I don't think I cried for Buck O'Neil. Common wisdom says that, despite being forbidden from playing and coaching in the major leagues, not to mention choosing his own seat on a bus, O'Neil held no grudges against the ignorant majority that treated him like a lesser man. Once he was allowed into the major leagues as a coach, he was motivated not by revenge, but by opportunity. He seemed to enjoy every aspect of life, even the least pleasant ones.

I cried for Buck O'Neil not as a victim, but as a symbol of the small-minded hatred that kept millions of people from enjoying the basic human rights I've taken advantage of since birth. And I cried because my generation, despite our access to the many lessons of history, isn't doing much better. We still live in a world in which a referendum to keep gays from enjoying the basic rights (and responsibilities) of marriage is used as an incentive to bring the small-minded to the voting booth and re-elect an ethically-stunted warmonger.

Maybe the gay community needs a Jackie Robinson, a Rosa Parks, a Martin Luther King, Jr.- someone who can preach common sense to those who don't want to listen. Because I don't want to cry when Elton John dies.

They're grrrrrreat!

2006-10-08T00:31:00.000-04:00

Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, Red Sox, Angels, Tigers.

Thanks to Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Todd Jones, Joel Zumaya, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, Craig Monroe, and even "Ball Four" Rogers. You've made the rest of October much more watchable. Six in a row for the good guys!

Songs!

2006-09-18T22:56:00.000-04:00

Check out this year's songs list on my Geocities site. I have some finishing touches to...uhh... finish, but it's still listable.

Welcome to the Drollhouse

2006-09-14T16:07:00.000-04:00

I'm on TV!

More accurately, my reflection scoffs at me from its place on the 19" MGA across the whitewashed room. At the bottom of the screen, my legs are cartoonishly long and thick in my ratty jeans. The toes of yesterday's dress socks face each other, their blackness in sharp contrast to the iBook on my lap. If I had a choice, a Padres game or The Price is Right, even a Saved By the Bell rerun, would stare back at me in place of my reflection, but the cable guy is tied up for the rest of the month and even the major networks don't agree with this old piece of junk.

To my right, a perfect Maine day taunts me through the blinds. Green and red leaves hug branches relentlessly, a trashbag grave in their not-too-distant future. Two kids, probably future yoga instructors or garage band drummers, fly by on bicycles. A new world awaits, the city I've been invoking for months to steal me away from the callousness of the suburbs. If I had a choice, I'd be out there exploring, looking for pub I'll spend countless Friday nights in, the consignment shop that will help furnish my first house, the used record store that will redefine my collection. Or at the very least, I'd be at work, counting down the minutes to said exploration.

Alas, I sit as I have every evening of my short Maine life, reclined in a La-Z-Boy, listening to John Cale and Kanye West and Sinead O'Connor, anyone who will keep me company through an ailment that could only be brought on by a move north in autumn. Just a cold, sure, but one that's essentially postponed my introduction to Portland.

My first impressions of Portland, pre-sickness, were overwhelmingly positive. Bars with 80 taps and plentiful seating. An eight-minute drive to work through the densest of rush hours. Ocean views you can't seem to escape traveling north, south, east, or west. SIx-dollar playoff baseball tickets.

That's right, six-dollar playoff baseball tickets. Soon enough...

Last Pond Street post

2006-09-08T17:57:00.000-04:00

This is the last time I'll have a computer at home until Jill moves up to Portland at the end of September (I move tomorrow), and the most pleasant thing on my mind is this year's song list. Individual lists aren't sue for another week due to a CD sharing snafu, but mine's ready to go. Rather than sharing my ballot, I'll share some facts and figures about the nominated songs.

Three artists had three songs nominated:
The Beatles ("I've Just Seen a Face", "Here Comes the Sun", and "Get Back")
Nirvana ("In Bloom", "Lithium", and "Verse Chorus Verse")
Modest Mouse ("Never Ending Math Equation", "Bukowski", and "Float On")
Of the three, only the Beatles were nominated last year (four different songs, one by two voters).

Of the twelve artists with two songs nominated this year, two were nominated by three or more voters:
Neutral Milk Hotel ("Song Against Sex" by three voters, "Holland 1945" by one)
The Pixies ("Gigantic" by two voters, "Gouge Away" by one)

Both of these groups, along with the following four artists, also had at least one song nominated last year:
Bob Dylan ("The Times They Are A-Changing", "Positively 4th Street")
David Bowie ("Conversation Piece", "Sound and Vision")
Elton John ("Your Song", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road")
Rufus Wainwright ("Go or Go Ahead," "11:11")

The six first time nominees with two songs on this year's ballot are The Flaming Lips, Of Montreal, Prince, Sufjan Stevens, The Talking Heads, and Wire.

Among those artists not nominated last year or this year (out of 328 songs) are Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Public Enemy, Pearl Jam, and Supergrass). The only two albums in the 2004 or 2005 QHS200 without a track nominated for either song list are The Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" and Belle and Sebastian's "If You're Feeling Sinister".

The three best songs nominated this year that I'd never heard before are "Chan Chan," by Buena Vista Social Club (courtesy of Pat), "All My Little Words," by the Magnetic Fields (courtesy of Eric), and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.," by Sufjan Stevens (courtesy of Mark).

The three songs I liked least (of 154 nominated) are Kraftwerk's "Trans Europa Express", Hall and Oates's "Rich Girl," and Barenaked Ladies' "Call and Answer".

Four of the top eleven songs on my ballot are by white artists. I nominated three of them myself.

Besides my own list (from which I pulled 13 of 20 for my ballot), Nick will land the most songs (nine) in my top 50. Eric and Jill have seven apiece. Every voter landed at least two songs in my top 21, except for Shayna, who contributed song number four.

Baby Steps

2006-08-28T15:09:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to the 22 of you who chose "years of complaining" in my "what will be the result of the O'Connor family move to Portland?" poll. I thought I'd find it funny when half of you picked that one, but I was genuinely offended when it became the most popular answer among any poll I've ever posted. Either 22 of you know me too well, or several of you were so confident in my complaining abilities that you actually voted more than once. Wow.

This weekend brought another step forward in the O'Connors Move to Maine initiative. We found a two-bedroom side-by-side duplex to rent in Portland, five minutes from my office, a mile from Byron's place, and right around the corner from the Great Lost Bear, which I expect to become my regular haunt for the next year or so. We sign a lease tomorrow.

The next step would be the formalization of the offer Jill got on her house last week. If all goes according to plan, there's a Purchase and Sale in our near future and a closing date not to far thereafter. Keep your fingers crossed.

The last step will be Jill finding a job, hopefully in the not-too-distant future. She'll be in Framingham for at least the rest of September, while I go back to fending for myself and hoping to avoid scurvy for another three solo weeks in Maine.

I Didn't Have to Use My AK

2006-08-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

After a rough one yesterday, today was indeed a very good day. I got a job offer at 10:15, had a counter offer accepted by 10:16, had given my notice at the 'socket by 1, and by mid-afternoon it was in writing. I'll be the Accounting Manager at the Un*ted W*y of Greater Portland on Monday, September 11.

I left work early, had the car washed, made a few calls to potential homebuyers, sent emails to a few potential sublessors, and settled in for Le Charme Desret de la Bourgeoisie. Sufficiently guffawed-out, I saw that the Red Sox had a big lead and the Y*****s a big deficit, so I went out in search of someone with whom to celebrate. The in-laws were out, and Joe wasn't at Marc Anthony's, but I stayed long enough to drink a free High Life courtesy of Buzz, high off his big Keno payout. Now I come home to find a potential room lease in the works, a 9-1 Sox lead in the 8th, and the Angels leading for The Cause, 7-4.

Not a bad Friday. If only I were tipping High Lifes with the wife...

Exhaustion

2006-08-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

I'm so exhausted, physically and mentally, that I initially spelled it "Exhaustian" above. Sounds like the ruler of some failed empire that got swallowed up by Greece or Rome before it could impose its reign of mild bestiality and required casual Fridays on the world. "All hail Exhaustian! He's the best we've got!"

Anyway, my laundry list these days includes:

-waiting to hear back about a job offer I was supposed to get yesterday

-trudging through a job I can no longer stomach without the luxury of having given my notice

-trying to sell a house whose only responsible owner is in China

-waiting to hear back from realtors I plan to interview about the sale of said house

-trying to find a place to live alone in Portland in September and how to furnish it

-thinking about where to live with Jill in October and how we're going to pay for it if said house hasn't sold

-making regular four-hour round-trips on weekdays in attempt to accomplish the two items above

-tracking down the credit card I lost in my last trip to Maine

-keeping all of the above from my employer for fear that the whole thing falls through and I have to stay at my current awful job for a while

-knowing that I have almost no vacation time since I just took a two-week honeymoon in May

-physical exhaustion from the return of tennis to my life (hard courts never left me this sore when I was 18) and yesterday's parking lot football game at work

-"cooking" for myself, keeping the house clean for potential buyers, and sleeping alone every night for an unprecedented 17 days

-trying to refinance an auto loan in an era of high interest rates

-accepting the fact that the Y*****s are heavy favorites to win the World Series, while the few healthy Red Sox pitchers, even Jonathan Papelbon (my RoY, MVP, and Cy Young pick until this week) and third-through-fifth string catchers can't get anyone out anymore

-actual laundry

Near Misses

2006-08-05T15:22:00.000-04:00

This year's Songs List Summit is less than two weeks away, and as Jill's trip to China forced her to finalize her list a few weeks early and mine's been in the works for months now, I thought I'd lock it down on a lazy, lonely Saturday afternoon. In the spirit of Mark's entry before last year's list, I thought I'd advertise the songs I had the most trouble leaving off this year's list of 20. Keep in mind that anything nominated for last year's list is ineligible in '06, so you're looking at #s 21 through 50 that didn't get a mention last year.

21. Sing, Travis - an addictive tune, but a little too pedestrian lyrically to crack the list
22. Don't Change Your Plans, Ben Folds Five - one of last year's final cuts just misses again
23. Stray Cat Blues, The Rolling Stones - ditto
24. Adrenaline, The Roots
25. Everyday, Buddy Holly & His Crickets - very nearly a late addition to the list
26. E-Bow the Letter, REM
27. God Makes No Mistakes, Loretta Lynn
28. Country Comfort, Elton John - could've taken 5 or 6 EJ songs; took one
29. Stand By Me, Ben E. King
30. Will You Love Me Tomorrow, The Shirelles - the best of three versions of this song I auditioned
31. At Last, Etta James
32. A Change is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke
33. Seeing Other People, Belle and Sebastian - too much B&S last year to nominate another one...
34. Cover (Version), Belle and Sebastian - ...but this would've been a decent choice too
35. Good Vibrations, The Beach Boys
36. Idioteque, Radiohead
37. I Feel Free, Cream
38. Jesus, Etc., Wilco - so many great Wilco songs, but none transcendent
39. Hey Ya!, OutKast - too easy?
40. Come on Eileen, Dexy's Midnight Runners - I just couldn't go there...
41. Dancing Queen, ABBA - ...or there
42. Reuters, Wire
43. Positively 4th Street, Bob Dylan - see Wilco comment, add 30 years of great songs
44. For No One, The Beatles - I couldn't list two Beatles songs, and I'm a sucker for the old stuff these days
45. Pass in Time, Beth Orton
46. Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O'Connor - if only it was the best song on its album...
47. Ordinary Joe, Terry Callier
48. No Surface All Feeling, Manic Street Preachers
49. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Paul Simon
50. Get Gone, Fiona Apple - I nominated this song last year, but nobody seemed to notice, so I almost snuck it in again

Netfluck

2006-07-26T16:14:00.000-04:00

The Mrs. and I finally broke down and joined Netflix. We watched Wet Hot American Summer last night, and if its excellence was any indication of our Netflix experience, I might as well quit my job and take up moviewatching full-time. Crash is up next, with 41 more silent films, French classics, and documentaries (though no silent French documentaries, as far as I know) in the queue.

Only when the Red Sox are on the West Coast can I schedule a bachelor party, play six rounds of Dance Dance Revolution, eat a delicious meal, apply for a j*b, and watch an entire movie before prying my eyes open through three innings of dingers.

Paradise and the Great Satan

2006-07-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

Jill and I spent the long weekend at Jeff's camp on Lake Cobbosseecontee, near Augusta, Maine. I hadn't been there for more than a few hours in several years, and I must say that a weekend there certainly takes on a new meaning as an adult. The chance to get away from computers and deadlines and lawnmowers and dishwashers in the serenity of a lakeside cottage (although I did escape to Portland for a j*b interv*ew on Friday morning and the dishes still had to be done) makes the nine-to-five grind a little more tolerable.

We spent the weekend swimming, drinking wine, and playing board games with Jeff, Arlene, Greg, and Grace, each couple taking turns cooking meals while the rest of us laid out in the hammock or the porch swing with a book and/or a beer. I even ventured out to the east side of the lake in a kayak on Saturday night and learned several valuable lessons, most of them about how taxing kayaking is on every muscle in the upper body.

Before my interv*ew on Friday and on our way home on Sunday, I got a few more chances to check out Portland, and I'm quickly falling in love with this little city. As long as the house sells and the j*bs come, there's no keeping the O'Connors away from Portland in the coming months.

I'm trying to use as much ink as possible on the fond memories of this trip and the prospects of a move to Maine because while we were gone, The Great Satan was once again rearing its ugly head back in the real world. While the Red Sox were busy losing three of four to Oakland, the Y*****s were finding their late-season form in a highly improbable sweep of the White Sox. They whittled their division deficit to a half game and pulled within 3 1/2 of Chicago, only to win again Monday night.

No big deal, right? This happens every year. Let's fast forward to last night. While I watch Jon Lester dismantle the Royals, I'm happy to see Seattle leading New York 4-2 every time NESN gives me an update. Can they come back? Sure. Is it likely? Not with criminal drunkard and desperate waiver wire pickup Sidney Ponson on the mound. The Sox game ends and I check the final score in New York, just so I could sleep soundly at night, only to find the following scenario:

Ponson somehow gave up just the four runs in six plus innings, and the dismal bullpen shut down Seattle into the ninth, keeping the game at 4-2 and placing it in the hands of surprisingly effective Mariners closer JJ Putz. The entire Y***** roster is injured (not surprising, as they average about 57 years old and have played 5-17 extra games in each of the past nine Octobers), so the Satans bring up Andy Phillips, Melky Cabrera and Aaron Guiel, a threesome almost as imposing as Warren Tire's Colvin-Tolman-Carr murderer's row in '91 Queensbury Little League.

Naturally, Phillips doubles, and after Cabrera strikes out, Guiel singles him home. No worries yet. Guiel moves to second on a wild pitch, caused by rain whipping around so hard that the game would have been called by now had The Umps' Boys not been losing. Jorge Posada grounds out for the second out, bringing up... wait a minute... Posada was called safe! On a call so obvious that the Associated Press called it "visibly wrong", baseball's slowest turtle-faced catcher was called safe on what should have been the second out of the inning, allowing some anonymous beardless centerfielder's would-be game-ending flyout to bring home the game-tying run. At this point, the game is delayed (it's safe now, since a baseball game can't end in a tie) and after two more innings of baseball that shouldn't have been played, Melky Cabrera hits a walk-off homer to clinch the Kitten Slayers' fifth straight "win". Unbelievable.

It's days like this that make me wonder why I still waste my time on this game. And then I remember Luis Gonzalez's bloop single. And I'm back on Lake Cobbosseecontee.

Shoe rank, etc.

2006-07-06T21:20:00.000-04:00

An actual email from a woman who wants to live with Colleen. Unedited.

Films!

2006-06-28T22:26:00.000-04:00

Call me strange, but I love this year's movie list. Check it out.

Still holding!

2006-06-25T11:13:00.000-04:00

Why not one more list while I wait for the final six contributors? My 10 favorite movies starring either Bill Murray or Peter Sellers:

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. Rushmore
3. Ghostbusters
4. Lost in Translation
5. The Royal Tenenbaums
6. Being There
7. Caddyshack
8. Lolita
9. Groundhog Day
10. Broken Flowers

And one more: my 10 favorite movies starting with the word "The":

1. The General
2. The Apartment
3. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. The Graduate
5. The Godfather, Part II
6. The Philadelphia Story
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. The Bicycle Thief
9. The Deer Hunter
10. The Third Man

You don't think I have another one in me, do you? Try this: my 10 favorite movies with a woman's name in the title:

1. Annie Hall
2. Fantasia
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's
4. Harold and Maude
5. Sex and Lucia
6. Bonnie and Clyde
7. Rosemary's Baby
8. Belle de Jour
9. Amelie
10. All About Eve

Apologies to Norma Rae and Nell; Fantasia and Belle de Jour were pretty cheap.

I've sunk this low.

Golden Greats

2006-06-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

Bad day yesterday, better day today. Moving on...

Since the movie list deadline has been pushed off (almost) beyond my control, I give you one more mini-list, my top ten movies before Pearl Harbor (not the release of the movie Pearl Harbor, but the attack on our base):

1. The General
2. Citizen Kane
3. It Happened One Night
4. A Night at the Opera
5. Fantasia
6. His Girl Friday
7. The Philadelphia Story
8. The Bank Dick
9 Modern Times
10. The Wizard of Oz

twins dingers open houses childhood movies

2006-06-18T23:36:00.000-04:00

So much about which I haven't told you. Too hot to tell you about all of it. Too hot to write full sentences. Pat and Rob in Framingham for Nameburst, CD swap, Bank Dick, two games at Fenway last weekend. Open houses two Sundays in a row. No sale yet. No visitors today. Still live in Framingham.

Top 10 movies of my childhood (would call it my lifetime, but too many good movies in the last 8 years). Let's call it 1980 to 1998:

1. Cinema Paradiso
2. Silence of the Lambs
3. Life is Beautiful
4. Ghostbusters
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Waiting for Guffman
7. Resevoir Dogs
8. Roger & Me
9. Fargo
10. This is Spinal Tap

Miscellany

2006-06-08T22:51:00.000-04:00

We named our fish Loretta and Lowell, after two new Red Sox Jill considers indistinguishable, and Otto Sucksworth, the autocat whose job it was to suck the scum from the aquarium. I use the past tense because today we lost three more fish, including Sucksworth and Loretta. We're down to six, and in no rush to replace them. Maybe we'll start fresh at the new house.

Speaking of new houses, this one's looking pretty good, thanks to the long hours one of the owners and I have put in over the past week and change- cleaning, staging, heavy lifting, and gardening- in hope that someone is willing to pay enough that Jill's share constitutes a downpayment on our first place.

It's because of tonight's labor- moving junk to the basement, mulching, laundry, etc. that I'm too tired to tell you everything I want to tell you about Sunday night's Radiohead concert, a gift with which Jill surprised me last week. It was my third show, and while they're starting to feel more like a nostalgia act than The Only Band That Matters, they still put on a hell of a show. Rock.

Something in the Water

2006-06-03T14:48:00.000-04:00

Rest in peace, Pam, Herbert, Hoover, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. All four inexplicably turned upside-down yesterday, inspiring their foster mother and I to clean the filter and replace some of the water in an attempt to save Cady, Bradley, Shakira, Soy, Orlando Cabrera, and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy O'Nassis. The tank needs another bottom feeder, so keep an eye out for new fishnames this weekend.

Was anyone else distraught that a Canadian nearly won our national spelling bee this week? Apparently, middle-schoolers from English-speaking countries and island have been eligible for years, but this Finola Hackett was the first canuck to make the final round. We don't have our national grammar rodeo in Canada, do we?

It's June, and that can mean several things- kids get out of school, Mark, Pat, and Rob turn 26, and we honor our fathers with neckties and scotch- but most importantly, it's movie season. This year's list won't come out for another three weeks, and I don't want to advertise too much of my unfinished list, but my movie obsession has kicked in and I'm dying to share something. So without further ado, my top ten movies from 1963 to 1976:

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
3. The Graduate
4. The Godfather, Part II
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. Wait Until Dark
7. Chinatown
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey
9. Harold and Maude
10. Network

If I added a year on either end, you'd see my #s 3 and 5 movies. I'll save that for another blog.

How to Wash Aluminum Siding, by Mr O.

2006-05-29T18:17:00.000-04:00

Of this weekend's many home-improvement projects, the most daunting was cleaning the aluminum siding in the front of the house, to bolster what Mrs. O calls "curb appeal".

Different sources have different theories about the proper agent for removing dirt, mildew, and general nastiness from aluminum, so I gave each of them a shot. I tried bleach and water; ammonia and water; detergent and water; and bleach, detergent, and water. From the results of these four experiments, a scientist would probably infer that water is damaging to aluminum siding.

Bleach and water left the walls looking much like they did before cleaning, with perhaps a 5% decrease in grime. Ammonia and water was less effective. Detergent and water was quite effective at moving the grime around the walls, usually until it dripped down and froze as a series of gray drops. Not impressed with any of the above, I decided to wash the entire wall with the three-way combo, which continued to move the filth around, distributing the nastiness until some slats were as much as 10% cleaner than they were yesterday. I meticulously hacked away at the rest of the slats until they were no more than 20% dirtier than yesterday, brought my beer inside, and gave up.

I think of all the things I could have done in the last two hours that would have been better uses of my time than redistributing the goo on the front of this house, and it's not as depressing as you might think. After all, there's still a chance that I won't live in Framingham by the end of the summer. And that ain't not bad.

***Addendum***
After giving the bleachy concoction a half hour to dry, it's clear that I overestimated my success. On the whole, the front of the house looks at least 30% worse than it did prior to "washing".

Married life, part I

2006-05-24T23:01:00.000-04:00

To those disliking hour-long TV shows, today is big with blessings.

I sat through a two-hour finale of Lost tonight, after a week in which I watched a two-hour Alias finale, a one-hour Charmed finale, a two-hour Grey's Anatomy finale (the night after its one-hour preview), a two hour Desperate Housewives finale, and an extra special one-hour ER finale. My reward- no new TV (baseball aside) for almost four months. Dingers!

Of course, it's all about compromise. The season finale of my show, The Office, was a super-sized 40 minutes.

One Last Happy Hour

2006-05-18T21:44:00.000-04:00

This is the 2nd to last entry in a 12-entry series about our honeymoon that begins and ends at Jill's blog.

Wednesday, May 10

Waking up significantly later than 4am was a pleasant change. We caught breakfast on the roof, got directions to the Coronado Ferry from the Gaslamp Plaza valet, and set off, without so much as a glance at either of our watches.

We arrived at the pier at 11:05, when we realized the ferry leaves every hour on teh hour. We killed an hour sitting on a bench, watching planes take off and lamenting the end of our trip. At noon, we hopped on the ferry and sat in the sun of the second deck for the 15-minute trip.

On the island, we walked past adorable condo after adorable condo, finally resting our feet and emptying our bladders (ok, my bladder) at our fourth and final public library of the trip. Coronoado's was by far the most impressive, due in large part to its spacious, sunny reading room, of which we did not take advantage. We ate dinner at the Coronado Brewing Company, whose red ale was every bit as good as Karl Strauss's, so we polished off a pitcher before happy hour.

The return ferry picked up some passengers at a Naval boat, where we were warned that cameras and camcorders would be confiscated if it were suspected that anyone had taken a picture. Sufficiently freaked out, we got back in time to meet Joe downtown at 3:10.

Joe took us to The Yardhouse, whose claim to fame is 100+ beer taps, so I continued my red ale tour with a Humboldt Red, a Mad River Jamaica Red, a Murphy's (best of the bunch), and a Killian's (the weakest). Jill, naturally, drank martinis, and Joe followed suit, matching each of Jill's four after a beer. By the time we bid adieu to the week's most intoxifying host, my blushing bride was tripping over sidewalk cracks and squeezing my hand for balance.

We took in dinner at Candela's, a high-end Mexican joint with a French twist and a candlelit wine cellar ambience. Sangria kept the "buzz" alive while we sloshed over three courses that could just as easily have been $60 McDonald's cheeseburgers in our condition.

I played seeing-eye dog as the little lady greeted passersby and restaurant hostesses on the way back to the hotel. We passed out for a half hour or so, woke up long enough to pack and set an alarm, caught lost and went to sleep for the last time as honeymooners.

Jill will take us home on Thursday.

Talk to the Animals and You'll See

2006-05-18T19:52:00.000-04:00

Monday, May 8

Having napped a little and gone to bed fairly early (2am EST), it was easy to get up early on Monday, but neither of us was quick to get out of bed. After a few Sportscenters, a few episodes of Cribs, and a few chapters of "King Dork" and "The Mind of Bill James," we crawled out of bed and hit the library (our third) by 12:30. Jill printed out directions to Tuesday's balloon ride, while I went back to the room for the forgotten zoo tickets and camera and called Enterprise to reserve a rental car.

It was after 1 by the time we walked across town to the Balboa Park Tram, rode to thecenter of the park, and reached teh zoo, so we were nervous that we might not have time to see everything we wanted to see and still pick up the car by six, when Enterprise closed.

No such problem. We opened our zoological adventure with a ride on the Skyfari Animal Tram, a luxury afforded us by our deluxe adventure tickets (thanks, K,T&L). The views were unspectacularuntil we caught some tapirs and dik-diks at the north end of the park, which is where we started our self-guided walking tour.

The next 3 1/2 hours offered more beautiful, homely, endangered, unthreatened, majestic, filthy, rare, and ubiquitous animals than this medium recommends that I describe. We saw hippos, meerkats, elephants, lemurs, giraffes, fishing cats, lions, rhinoceroses, and even mating turtles. We watched them sleep, swim, fly, eat, roar, and mark their respective territories every way possible. We even had time to eat a better-than-average lunch and leave the park before 5:00. And on this, the only day of the trip when the camera was in my possession, I took about eighty pictures, none of which was of a Christian Science Reading Room or a library.

Our feet having been through enough, my bride and I took a cab back downtown, where we picked up our shiny blue Ford Focus and drove around the Gaslamp district until we found a metered spot without applicable restrictions.

The readathone resumed briefly beterrn parking and dinner at the Gaslamp Tavern, where we sat on the outdoor side of the bar and watched Greg Maddux get pounded by Dave Roberts and the Padres over a few drinks and some top shelf bar food. At 8:30, we turned in, hoping to watch some TV and get plenty of sleep for Wendesday's early balloon ride. I set my alarm for 3:49, watched the Suns put the Clippers away, and closed my eyes.

For a Wednesday recap, go find Jill.

Dingeros!

2006-05-18T19:18:00.000-04:00

Saturday, May 6

We brought in the weekend with our first complimentary continental breakfast on the hotel roof. You get what you pay for.

After lounging and reading, we took off for Balboa Park, San Diego's cross between Central Park and the Smithsonian, where all the city's museums are housed on a giant greenspace. On the way, we dined on the patio at Sixth Avenue Bistro, where the service was infrequent and the radio hummed Dan Fogelberg, ABBA, and more of the anonymous 1978 wussrock that seemed to follow us everywhere we went in San Diego. When the weather's this good, who needs good music.

The walk to Balboa Park was longer than we thought, so we made a stop at San Diego High School's baseball diamond, where we watched a half-inning of a men's league game. The level of play was unpectacular, but there's something exciting about guys playing baseball on a sunny day day in early May without getting paid.

When we got to the park, we headed straight for the Activity Center for a map and some museum information. Instead, we found the Holy Grail of San Diego attractions- a ping-pong tournament. For about a half hour, we watched young and old, male and female, black, white, and (mostly) Asian athletes of all shapes and sizes slap little white balls at inspiring speeds and alluring angles. I got the feeling that the players were practicing for an actual tournament on Sunday, since we saw a ten-or-eleven-year-old kid playing a grown man, several women playing men, and a guy in a wheelchair playing a bipod, but this might have just been the nature of the truly open tournament. Either way, I couldn't ask for a better pre-culture diversion.

Jill had a better idea about how to get around the park than I did, and found the tram near the entrance. We squeezed on and sat through three green lights just to go straight, as San Diego's pedestrains exercised their right of way with cool disregard for those of us cooped up in automobiles. Fifteen minutes (and a quarter mile) later, we got off at the center of the park, where we checked out the Botanical House, the Art Museum gift shop (the free part), and some of the impressive courtyards that bind the museums with a sense of Southern California's history, culture, and landscape.

We finally settled in at the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, where a diminuitive, jeans-clad San Diegan plyed a giant bronze organ, providing a sometimes eerie, sometimes circusesque soundtrack to a sunny afternoon weddingfest. Twenty-year-old Mexican kids must have been getting married all over the park, because the grounds were loaded with wedding photographers and tiny brides, grooms, groomsmen and flower girls posing for pictures at the white-pillared pavilion. I was most impressed by a groom in a white tux with a pink vest and his ten little groomsmen (his brothers?) pimping their pink vests all over the park.

We caught a much more efficient tram back to the entrance and walked downtown, where we had a beer and listened to a west-coast troubador sing Jimmy Buffet and Little Mermaid songs at an outdoor fish joint whose patrons flossed their Cubs and Padres gear (no two Padres hats are the same) while wisely munching on affordable haddock and clams, saving the $14 they'd pay for a Miller Lite and a slice of cheese at Petco Park, our destination down the street.

The Mrs. had her Red Sox shirt on, and I was posing aas the great Jonathan Papelbon (#58) for the evening, so I decided I needed a Padres hat to celebrate my love of San Diego and my respect for Dave Roberts, Mark Bellhorn, and Mike Piazza (my favorite player in the same way that the Jews were my favorite Europeans in the late '30s and early '40s). We hit the Padres store and Jill bought me the hat she thought looked best on me.

We were inside the park early enough to watch the Cubs take batting practice, peruse the stadium's attractions (a tiny [and crowded] baseball field for kids, a mini Hall of Fame exhibit, and cages where you can pitch to a major league hitter or hit off a major league pitcher, among many others). Natives of Fenway Middle School & Penitentiary, we were shocked to hear ushers tell us "you can sit or stand wherever you want until 6:30" and "I recommend you go to your seats this way, so you can take pictures at field level on your way". One usher even answered Jill's questions about the Padres' retired uniform numbers with brief anecdotes about Steve Garvey, Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, and Randy Jones. We snapped a few shots of Pat's favorite future Hall of Famer, Juan Pierre, and Mark Bellhorn, who will someday be the co-namesake of Pesky and Bellhorn's pole, and found our seats with plenty of time to spare.

Perhaps the trip's greatest disappointment was the announcement that Eric Young would lead off and play left field for the Padres, meaning Dave Roberts had the night off. I took the opportunity to pretend I'd drunk more $7.50 beers than I actually had and yelled "we want Roberts," "Roberts would have caught that," and other quasi-appropriate epithets at various times throughout the game, but it didn't do much to ease the sorrow of missing a chance to give a standing ovation to one of Boston's most prolific suicide-preventers.

Not much less disappointing was local hero Jake Peavy's introduction music (that's right, pitchers hit out here... and everyone bunts!), the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, a delightfully racist statement on a night dedicated to several Negro League greats in attendance (including Buck O'Neil and Don Newcombe). We decided to root against Peavy and revel in Cubs rookie Sean Marshall's no-hitter through 5 1/3, but were not too crushed when Rob Bowen's 10th inning homer won the game for San Diego, 2-1.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant around the corner from our hotel for over-filling appetizers, and I put back a potent blue margarita, refusing to go to bed sober for the first time in San Diego.

Jill will tell you about Sunday.

One More Day to Bake

2006-05-17T23:25:00.000-04:00

Thursday, May 4

After Tuesday's disappointing Bahia buffet and Wednesday's foot-crippling walk to Mission (due to my flip-flops, not the distance), we decided to skip breakfast on Thursday. We caught up on this journal, took our time showering and dressing, and took off for Pacific Beach, where Jill trekked shoelessly to the ocean and put her feet in (still cold, very cold).

Having held off until almost noon, we took another trip to Luigi's for yet another pitcher of Red Trolley and a pizza. Our favorite waitress, Caitlin (probably), had moved on to a better summer job, as evidenced by the "Goodbye, Caitlin" banner behind the counter, but our server was adequate, and our meal as delicious as Sunday's.

We stoped on the boarwalk for a shaved Hawaiian ice and returned to the room to take advantage of the first full afternoon's worth of sunshine. We laid out on the private bay beach just behind the sliding door to the living room of our suite, me well-lubed and Jill stubbornly sunscreened only on her face and torso. She would pay. After a few hours on the beach, a quick dip in the pool (where the air was much cooler than the water), and a brief stint of poolside ray-catching, my wife's arms emerged painlessly charred, but her legs weren't so lucky.

We took some time to write out postcards to family stuck in the cold, rainy East (and my parents) before jumping on the 34 bus back to La Jolla for dinner. We browsed a few art galleries on our way, one of which almost got me in trouble. Before being approached by a friendly shopkeep, Jill and I agreed that we were very impressed by several European landscapes and seminude portraits by Maher Marcos, a featured Sicilian-Egyptian artist with a knack for creative lighting and a feish for almost-bare breasts at the dinner table, but altogether unimpressed with the cubist nudes of Clair, the gallery's other featured artist. "Imagine being another cubist?" might have been my exact quote.

The shopkeep greeted us and walked us around, raving about Marcos's work, over which we continued to fawn while ignoring Clair's cubes for greener pasteurs. Finally, just before I made a snide remar about cubism (while Jill and the 'keep talked about Picasso's $90 million sale earlier in the day), we were introduced to Clair, the Ithaca-born cubist and our host for the evening. I swallowed hard, thanked Ms. Clair for the tour, and we left for the bar next door at George's on the Cove.

While waiting for a table, we sipped SoCo Manhattans with Manhattan socialites and watched Padres pitcher Clay Hensley take a broken bat to the back of the head. We went on to dine on La Jolla's most famous cuisine in front of La Jolla's most famous view, then moseyed our way bac to a bus stop and put a quiet end to oru evening, watching ER and finding out that the pool and hot tub closed at eleven. Alas.

See Jill for Friday.

Getting Our Feet Wet

2006-05-17T21:56:00.000-04:00

Our trip to Harbor Ave (down the streets from the airport) took half as long as the trip from the airport to the hotel, and cost $4 less. As we boarded the California Princess, we were greeted with champagne. We drank wine and ate a classy salmon dinner while circling the harbor, watching downtown buildings and impressively guarded military ships, some part of which made me feel a little seasick Our choice of the high-end open bar option allowed us not only one more drink than the other passengers (two for Jill), but prime seating at the front of the boat.

9-10pm was the designated dancing hour, but between my queasiness and the boogie-hangover still lingering from our wedding reception, Jill had a hard time dragging me upstairs to the dance floor. Not settling for the DJ's Tony Braxton-Boyz II Men style, Jill chose most of the muic, finally docking the ship with "Billie Jean," to which she danced shamelessly alone, to the applause of the other guests.

As a result of an unexpected but required 18% gratuity on the entire cost of the cruise, we were forced to walk about six blocks in search of an active ATM (Holiday Inn sent us to Hampton Inn; Hampton sent us to a shady 7-Eleven). Jill was neither wearing walking shoes nor particularly sober, so the trip was not an easy one, but I was able to take out enough cash to call a cab with confidence that I could pay for it. Our cab ride home was twice as fast again, and another $4 cheaper. We went to bed around midnight, after another dip in the pool and hot tub, and slept for almost ten woderful hours.

Tuesday, May 2

Breakfast at the Bahia was less impressive than Monday's, as our waffles were probably intended for the 7:00 diners. Our meal was cut short so the crew could set up for a BBQ lunch. We were briefly locked out of our room after breakfast, but upon picking up new room keys at the front desk, were rewarded with Jill's license and a few wedding pictures, thanks to Linda.

We hopped on the bus to La Jolla down the street from the hotel. Cafes and tanning salons start using the La Jolla moniker several blocks south of the famously ritzy downtown area, so our initial impression was that La Jolla was not unlike Pacific Beach- a Mexican-inspired, college-friendly tourist-time share hotspot. By the time our bus was rearended a block from downtown, we knew we were wrong. The driver was almost eerily composed, handing out witness cards to all the passengers before even checking on the driver of the car that hit us.

At Warwick's bookstore, I found Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" rather serendipitously (I had been looking for it without knowing the author, and for somer reason, wanted to stumble upon it in a romantic setting), and Jill picked out the journal in which we chronicled our trip (in part) for the benefit of this blog. We passed by posh shops and extravagant galleries, finally finding the Karl Strauss brewery, where we ate lunch, sampled beers, fell in love with Red Trolley Ale, and I bought Jill a t-shirt.

After lunch, at a quaint bookshop/gallery, the store clerk couldn't answer Jill's questions about L. Frank Baum's whereabouts (he must have been from San Diego, given their obsession with his work), but suggested that Dr. Seuss had lived nearby. For a cross-eyed Val Kilmer lookalike, he had very little information. None of the locals we asked elsewhere could confirm that Dr. Seuss had lived in La Jolla, let alone in the neighborhood. Star-smitten LA lies 120 miles north on Route 5, but it's a world away from La Jolla.

We did, of course, hit another public library in La Jolla, where we learned that the Sox had beaten the unspeakables, 7-3, and looked at wedding photos Colleen had emailed. On the return bus ride, we ran into a UCSD student who had been on the bus that was rearended earlier. He had nearly missed his vector calculus class as a result of the accident, and vowed that afternoon to put an end to his hour-and-a-half-each-way commute from Ocean beach and buy a car. He sat next to Jill and me and recommeded restaurants and attractions, but couldn't compete in volume or exuberance with our bus driver, a Georgia native who knew every hot spot, but hadn't eaten at a better place than Luigi's (which he called Loogy's).

Upon our return, we bought six Red Trolley Ales and six Anchor Steams and drank them with less-than-delicioso Mexican food from Roberto's (another favorite of our bus driver friend). We ended the evening with another trip to the hot tub, still unable to stay up past twelve, but quite satisfied with days one through three.

Back to Jill

Scenes From a Marriage

2006-05-17T21:50:00.000-04:00

I could write volumes about my wedding, to a beautiful New England bride on a beautiful New England day with the greatest of friends and family in tow, but if you're reading this, there's a good chance you were there. Instead, let's recap the next 13 days, our honeymoon in a whale's v... San Diego.

For an account of Sunday and early Monday's events, see Jill's blog. Then start reading above. We'll alternate day-by-day, and they'll read chronologically from bottom to top. Enjoy.

celllessness

2006-04-21T19:48:00.000-04:00

I know at least seven adults who don't have cell phones- and I don't know how they survive. I left my phone at home this morning (lost between two couch cushions, of course), and I don't know what was more disillusioning- not feeling the comfort of the phone on my right thigh all day (I can't tell you how many times I patted myself down in panic) or sitting in traffic on the way to my oil change with no means of communication to the world outside my car. Sure, I find it sad, even disturbing, that 40% of all drivers on routes 90 and 95 are on the phone at any given time (more like 80% if you're only surveying the right lane), but rarely does a 45-minute ride home from work elapse when I don't make a single call. I'm hooked, and I'm ashamed.

And I broke a wine glass tonight.

5000 miles

2006-04-19T21:19:00.000-04:00

At a toll booth on the Mass Pike today, my car cleared its 5000th mile, 85 days after I brought it home for the first time. At this rate, I'll have put 20,059 miles on it by the end of the year. Possible refinancing aside, by the time the car is paid off, I'll have driven 110,824 miles, almost exactly the number my mom and I drove the old '96 before I traded it in for the left rear hubcap on this one.

Perhaps it's time to rethink this Framingham-to-Burlington commute.

Prenuptial activities

2006-04-15T11:52:00.000-04:00

I'm sure all of you who are married know that the weekends before prior to the big day are spent raking leaves, cleaning up after family dinners, and of course purchasing music, all while your fiance shops for wedding-related toiletries and practices getting her hair done. Feel free to read those last five words again. It's true.

Back to the music purchasing part. After getting some recommendations from the Best Man, I picked up a couple albums yesterday, including The Chambers Brothers' "The Time Has Come" (for which I had to travel all the way to a record store) and Country Joe & the Fish's "Electric Music for the Mind and Body", whose third track, "Death Sound Blues" was the 6000th song added to my iTunes library. This morning's additions were the new Flaming Lips album, "At War with the Mystics", and "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears", credited curiously on the album cover to the Mama's and the Papa's (the apostrophes were removed by the time of their next album's release, hopefully after the person responsible for the oversight was fired and kicked in the teeth).

Jill and I caught our first 2006 baseball game at Fenway on Thursday, an 8-6 loss to Toronto on a beautiful night with wonderful company and a prime standing room location behind home plate. Dingers indeed.

Dingers, ho!

2006-04-02T22:23:00.000-04:00

In honor of opening night, and the fact that I haven't blogged in a while, and the fact that I'm too lazy to start my next major blog project, my 2006 baseball predictions:

AL East
New York 95-67
Boston 90-72
Toronto 88-74
Baltimore 73-89
Tampa Bay 71-91

AL Central
Cleveland 93-69
Chicago 92-70
Minnesota 85-77
Detroit 77-85
Kansas City 61-101

AL West
Oakland 91-71
Anaheim 84-78
Texas 80-82
Seattle 69-93

NL East
Atlanta 94-68
New York 93-69
Philadelphia 82-80
Washington 81-81
Florida 57-105

NL Central
St. Louis 93-69
Houston 86-76
Milwaukee 85-77
Chicago 81-81
Pittsburgh 69-93
Cincinnati 68-94

NL West
San Diego 85-77
Los Angeles 84-78
San Francisco80-82
Colorado 73-89
Arizona 70-92

White Sox over Y*****s in 5
A's over Indians in 4
Braves over Padres in 4
Mets over Cardinals in 5

A's over White Sox in 7
Mets over Braves in 5

A's over Mets in 4

AL MVP- Travis Hafner (.305, 43 HR, 125 RBI)
AL CY- Johan Santana (19-5, 2.38 ERA, 270 K)

NL MVP- Albert Pujols (.348, 49 HR, 144 RBI)
NL CY- Roy Oswalt (22-7, 2.50 ERA, 208 K)

George Mason!

2006-03-26T18:58:00.000-05:00

George Mason! Madness!

Spent last night in Brookline and hit every bar in Allston twice with Gary. I have no idea why. Three most shameful memories: paying a cover at The Avenue, doing a shot we didn't need at Our House, and c*ck-blocking a guy with a ponytail just because he had a ponytail. What am I, 22?

Inside of five weeks until married life. Excited, but not loving verbs tonight.

New fishies

2006-03-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

Pam, Orlando Cabrera, and Philip Seymour Hoffman have been joined in our aquarium by two scumsucking autocats named Hoover and Herbert, and two Rosy Tetras named Cady and Bradley or Pittsburgh, depending on the result of tomorrow's second round NCAA Tournament game.

Jill and I celebrated our Irishness with the earliest car bombs of our lives at Pepperoncini's yesterday, between cheap Killians' and glimpses of our brackets crumbling on flat-screen TVs. Then we napped and watched Bradley knock off Kansas and stake a claim to our fish's name.

Viva Mexico!

2006-03-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

Sure, this is the best day of the year because of college basketball, but it sure doesn't hurt that Mexico just knocked off Cl*mens and the US in the World Baseball Classic. Sure, they would have been knocked out earlier if not for some shaky officiating in the Japan game (from what I hear- I haven't watched a pitch), and that shakiness was reprised tonight when a clear Mexico homerun was called a ground-rule double for some reason, but the Yankericans are out now and that's what matters. Roger, I hope you find a post-retirement job testing corrosive acids with your face.

In other news, I got 54 people into this year's pool, a personal best, and at least 23 people can come to the wedding.

Happy St. Patrick's Day (and much more importantly, day two of the Madness).

'Tis the season

2006-03-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

Selection Sunday has come and gone, but the fun is just beginning. I'm predicting record participation in this year's pool, my tenth annual. If you have any interest in getting in, but didn't get an email from me this morning, send an email to bmoconline@gmail.com and I'll get you a bracket and a rule sheet.

Meanwhile, jeers to the classless Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, who berated selection committee chairman Craig Littlepage in a nationally televised interview last night using irrelevant and misleading statistics to suggest that the committee's inclusion of teams like Air Force and George Mason was unfair. The two pompous asses went so far as to interrupt Mr. Littlepage's attempt to congratulate all the teams that qualified for the tournament, to repeatedly refute the chairman's well-substantiated claims. I certainly can't boycott CBS this time of year, but I'll do whatever I can to avoid listening to these two basketball elitists.

In my somewhat humble opinion, the committee's mistakes were limited to:

-seeding Tennessee 2nd in the DC region, when at least 10 teams were more deserving of a 2 seed
-letting George Washington slip to an 8 seed after finishing with the best record in the country

Jill and I prepped for Selection Sunday with a trip to Newport on Friday night and a jaunt to Saratoga and Queensbury on Saturday night. We saw several friends, all of our nieces and nephews, and most of our siblings, drank car bombs and European beers, and talked weddings and movies for hours on end as if Selection Sunday were weeks away.

Let the games begin.

god bless you, Stubby Clapp

2006-03-08T19:30:00.000-05:00

That's right, a guy named Stubby Clapp scored the first run today when Team Canada knocked off Cl*mens, J*ter, AR*d, D*mon and co in the World Baseball Classic today. One more loss (though it would have to be against South Africa) and the US doesn't even make the second round.

More importantly, three days left until my Christmas, Selection Sunday, at which point my life serves no purpose other than running the World's Greatest NCAA Tournament Pool (can I get that trademarked?). My other Christmas? December 25.

In non-sports news, Jill and I finished watching the entire BBC version of The Office this week. I'd like to take a little more time to compare it to the American version, so I'll save that for its own post. For anyone who doesn't own it yet, the complete series DVD is a must-buy.

Witches jumpin' ship?

2006-03-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

If America, as a society, and Hollywood, as a sort-of microcosm of that society, have come so far that a song called "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" can win an Oscar, why is it that we still have to censor the word "bitches" when said song is performed on TV at 10:30 on a Sunday night, especially when such censorship results in the phrase "there's a whole lotta witches jumpin' ship"?

It's March. Anyone else feeling mad?

26 and fishy

2006-02-23T15:43:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Petit (soon to be a father of two), Kate, Jason, Pat, Larry, Grandad, Marge and Burt, and the family in NC for the birthday wishes yesterday. I'll be much more gym-ready with my new gym bag, lock, and a more fully-loaded iPod, among many other gifts.

On an unrelated note, this weekend Jill and I became the proud (foster) parents of four fish- Penguin Tetras named Jim and Pam and Red Something Tetras named Orlando Cabrera and Philip Seymour Hoffman. All three have lived for 48 72 hours in their new home, a monumental achievement in fish longevity. Jill wants the aquarium teeming with fish, so expect more updates in the near future.

State Stereotypes

2006-02-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

While I haven't been south of Houston Street in almost a year, my past American travels still make me the leading expert in US geography and sociology in the range of my home wireless network. In this era of tension and animosity between red states and blue states, stereotypes about the residents and terrain of our fifty great states have grown out of control. I'm here to confirm and dispel some of these truths and misconceptions. Below, I'll include one fact and one myth about each of the 38 states I've visited (or laidover in, or marked my territory on).

Arizona
Fact: It's hot. Seriously, cactuses and shit.
Fiction: Randy Johnson is 6'10". (he's 6'9 7/8")

Arkansas
Fact: The locals refer to it as "our Kansas".
Fiction: Someone knows what a Razorback is.

California
Fact: We stopped drawing state lines in 1849 because no one was paying attention anymore.
Fiction: Ain't no party like a west coast party 'cause a west coast party don't stop. (they stop)

Colorado
Fact: At any given point, most Colorado residents are standing at a 45 degree angle.
Fiction: The air is thinner in the Rockies. (you just feel fat because everyone else there is in shape)

Connecticut
Fact: Every gorgeous housewife in the state packs her insurance executive husband's lunch at 7:41am, drops off her 2.2 children at soccer practice, and takes her minivan to the tanning salon before lunch at Panera at 12:10. Seek alternate route.
Fiction: The second C is silent.

Delaware
Fact: The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel recently raised its toll to $446.50
Fiction: Delaware is actually a state.

Florida
Fact: The 2000 election was rigged thanks in part to Jeb Bush.
Fiction: The state speed limit is 7.

Georgia
Fact: Every male resident looks like either Michael Stipe or Andre 3000.
Fiction: It was ever on Ray Charles's mind (or Willie Nelson's, for that matter).

Idaho
Fact: Anyone who reads this state's name is indeed da ho.
Fiction: People live in Idaho.

Illinois
Fact: Despite the name, illin' takes a backseat to chillin' as the state pastime.
Fiction: The state nickname, Land of Lincoln, is justified.

Indiana
Fact: Larry Bird was the offspring of a pitchfork and a bale of plutonium-laced hay.
Fiction: "Hoosiers" was filmed in Indiana.

Kansas
Fact: The state's primary export is wind.
Fiction: One can drive across the entire state in a single week.

Kentucky
Fact: The Cincinnati airport is located in Kentucky for some reason.
Fiction: A bathtub mint julep can be made in a shower stall.

Maine
Fact: Home to the homeliest people in America.
Fiction: Moose are dangerous. (most moose are actually two people in costume)

Maryland
Fact: Maryland is the northernmost state in which Mr. Pibb outsells Dr. Pepper.
Fiction: 80% of Maryland restaurantgoers have crabs.

Massachusetts
Fact: There are no inhabitable towns west of Newton.
Fiction: All Massachusetts residents are rich, tree-hugging, gay-marrying liberals. (our governor is a rich, conversative scrotbag)

Michigan
Fact: Along with Hawaii, this is one of two states my dad hasn't visited, despite having gone to college in Indiana.
Fiction: Ford still manufacters automobiles.

Minnesota
Fact: Sweet Christ, it's cold.
Fiction: Lots of lakes, all of which are perfect for family-themed boat cruises.

Missouri
Fact: McDonald's suspended construction of its marquee Golden Arches when a mysterious river impeded the completion of the second arch.
Fiction: The state's "show me" attitude welcomes exhibitionism at WalMart. (be careful)

Montana
Fact: Native American teenagers in overalls will inquire about the "East Coast poontang" with no introducion.
Fiction: The sky in Montana is actually bigger.

Nevada
Fact: The state's buffets are quite affordable.
Fiction: HBO films 85% of its latenight programming in Nevada. (it's 84.3%)

New Hampshire
Fact: Despite its location far north of Hell, people here enjoy NASCAR.
Fiction: There was an old Hampshire.

New Jersey
Fact: Jersey shore beaches are popular vacation sites for Manhattan stockbrokers, needles, used condoms, and bodybags.
Fiction: Paramus has both north and south borders.

New York
Fact: Lake Placid has hosted Olympic Games; New York City has not.
Fiction: Utica, NY, is often referred to as The Big Apple, or The City That Never Sleeps

North Carolina
Fact: They loves their Jesus in Carolina. And their college basketball.
Fiction: Tobacco, before market, is pronounced tobacky.

Ohio
Fact: Alleged octaroon Warren G. Harding is LeBron James's great, great uncledaddy.
Fiction: John Lennon, Robert Johnson, and Jim Morrison would approve of Cleveland's Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Oregon
Fact: College athletes in Oregon are all Beavers and Ducks.
Fiction: Pro athletes in Oregon are all stoners and thugs.

Pennsylvania
Fact: Every county smells like the feces of a different animal.
Fiction: Like all northern cities, Philadelphia has indoor plumbing.

Rhode Island
Fact: Roger Williams divided Connecticut into two states after a three hour basement summit with Samuel Adams and an ounce of Maui Wowie.
Fiction: Rhode island is an island, and is paved with rhodes.

South Carolina
Fact: Schools, golf courses, and bowling alleys in South Carolina are still racially segregated.
Fiction: More than one person actually voted for Strom Thurmond more than once.

South Dakota
Fact: God effectively rigged the 1788, 1800, 1860, and 1892 elections by carving four future presidents' faces into a mountain in South Dakota.
Fiction: Pending state funding, a second mountain will display the likenesses of modern American heroes Condoleeza Rice, George Clinton, Sammy Sosa, and 50 Cent.

Utah
Fact: The second M in Mormon is silent.
Fiction: After discovering Utah, Lewis and Clark each tried to name it after the other, then agreed on "hate U" backwards.

Vermont
Fact: In 2005, Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream outsold razors in Vermont, 212-1.
Fiction: Howard Dean's backwoods upbringing would have proved detrimental against George Bush's Yale grooming anyway.

Virginia
Fact: Great scholars and leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are inspirations to every piece of hick trash born and raised in this great state.
Fiction: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Washington
Fact: People in Washington like coffee.
Fiction: The entire state is our nation's capital.

West Virginia
Fact: Most West Virginia bars serve miners.
Fiction: West Virginia third graders learn to play "Dueling Banjos" on the recorder even before "Hot Cross Buns".

Wisconsin
Fact: On particularly cold days, Wisconsin babies are often breast-fed cheese.
Fiction: Favre can be pronounced by the human tongue.

Wyoming
Fact: Brokeback Mountain is beautiful in the summer.
Fiction: Wyoming residents are proud of the state's most famous child, Dick Cheney.

For good measure, I'll list one stereotype about each of the twelve states I haven't visited. If you can confirm or deny these rumors, please let me know.

Alabama
Kant Komment Kandidly

Alaska
Cold and oily

Hawaii
Good weather, plentiful lei jokes, lots of vowels

Iowa
Lots of corn

Louisiana
Entirely below sea level

Mississippi
Everybody moves to the back of the bus.

Nebraksa
Again, corn

New Mexico
Not all that different from old Mexico.

North Dakota
I think this is the Dakota where Lennon was shot.

Oklahoma
The wind goes sweepin' down the plains.

Tennessee
Decent music and great ribs

Texas
Steers, queers, and soulless, born-again, egomaniacal, ultraviolent, ex-cokehead leaders of the free world...

Things I like about Framingham

2006-02-15T18:14:00.000-05:00

1) It's above sea level.
2) In the year I've lived here, Ive been neither robber nor murdered.

end communication

Live from Maconia

2006-02-12T18:38:00.000-05:00

I'm coming to you live, for the first time, from the O'Connor family iBook G4, where "delete" means "backspace", "right click" means "click on the other part of the same button and try not to punch anything when Windows commands don't appear to the right of the cursor", and "pay bills online" means "give Bank of America the same information 47 times, download Mozilla Firefox, give the same information 19 more times, and then give up and write a paper check for your cell phone bill".

My Mac exploits so far include putting all my music in one place for the first time in months, synching up my iPod with my Honda TTS software (and being only somewhat disappointed with the results), and downloading four new albums: Kanye West's last two, Talib Kweli's "Quality," and Supergrass's "Road to Rouen," all before Jill warned me that I'm not to purchase any new music this soon before my birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, Jill bought me a new overcoat yesterday, one whose sleeves are at least eight inches longer than my last one, and which extends a solid two feet lower, covering not only my ass, but my newly thawed thighs and knees. This will come in handy when I go back to work tomorrow through the foot-and-a-half of snow that God dumped on us today (though I'm not complaining, as I stayed in bed with my iBook, my iPod dock, and my other lover until after four o'clock this afternoon).

We spent yesterday in Worcester, watching the Holy Cross basketball team blow a big lead against Patriot League powerhouse Bucknell with Jill's dad and her cousin's son Riley. Every trip to Holy Cross reiterates my regret over not going to a school that cared about its basketball team. Holy Cross's high school-sized gym has two student sections, one of which wears purple "Tim's Tribe" t-shirts in honor of center Tim Clifford, while the other side wears "MVP Kevin Hamilton" t-shirts. They stagger their "let's go 'saders," "defense," and "asshole" chants for maximum penetration and wield signs like "Don't Panic," with a life-sized picture of Bucknell's Piniella-complexed head coach screaming at a ref, and "Classy Abe," with a picture of Bucknell guard Abe Titmus with two white girls (I'd love to know the story behind this one). The air was let out of the gymnasium gradually, as Bucknell mounted a comeback over the last eight minutes, during which time a horde of rowdy Pennsyltuckians made their presence felt.

On Friday night, we hosted Kate and Matt, enjoyed Jill's top-shelf cooking, and played three rounds of a DVD music game they brought called "Riff". Not a bad weekend.

Items

2006-02-05T22:22:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the NFL referees, who changed their minds after the Colts lost and successfully handed the Super Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I watched the first half with several Jeffreys and a boatload of loud white trash at Marc Anthony's in Ashland, and the second half with just the former group back home.

After deciding against spontaneous trips to Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, Staunton, New York, and Hartford, Jill and I sauntered up to Portland last night, where Byron and Alyssa showed off their new house and I showed off my new car (complete with a full bottle of wine spilled in the trunk).

Just before the trip to Maine, Jill informed me that our iBook arrived at her office. Had the weekend involved less Maining, Superbowling, and insulating, I'm sure I'd be intimate with it by now.

On Thursday night, a cop knocked on our front door to tell Jill that a neighbor had complained about her car blocking part of his driveway. Of course, this neighbor has only lived across the street from Jill for 21 years, taken on a tenant who had previously lived with Jill, and fathered Jill's prom date. Only in Framingham.

On Tuesday night, I broke my right index finger trying to steal a pass minutes into my weekly basketball games. Unwilling to give up the best exercise I get all week, I played three more games and taped it up the next day. I have close to full motion in the finger now and its purpleness has faded to a pinkbrown not unlike my natural finger hue.

I'm sure last weekend was full of blogworthy events as well, but I can't remember back that far. To be honest, I'm not sure why I keep this blog, but I'd feel like a jerk if I just gave it up.

Spending frenzy

2006-01-30T14:46:00.000-05:00

In an effort to spend the first several years' worth of my raise in the first month, Jill and I bought an iBook last week, which should arrive at the house anytime. I can't get all the features on my Honda Music Link with my Bluesocket PC, so we decided a Mac was a necessary addition to my iPod accessories and paraphernalia, which now total $24,441 (give or take a few bucks) spent since December '04.

I also bought new shoes and a burrito for Jaron, who later bought me a beer (but only after selling his futon and all of his baseball cards for $40).

RIP, BQB?

2006-01-23T16:33:00.000-05:00

Brainerd Q. Bitchslap vomited at work today, and spent the afternoon at Colleen's apartment, since he didn't want to relive the two-hour drive to work through the snow. I might want to rethink this alterego thing.

Brainerd Q. Bitchslap, 1/22/06-

2006-01-22T21:35:00.000-05:00

Not long after the dawn of the Coco Crisp era in Boston, I welcomed the Brainerd Q. Bitchslap era in Framingham. While I'm not usually one to name my own alteregos, Brainerd Q. Bitchslap looks like my most promising Mr. Hyde since Andre Pike, who lived in me about 20 hours a week in 2000.

Mr. Bitchslap's first appearance in public was at Bennigan's, where he watched the first half of tonight's NFC Championship with Jill. We got IDed for a Miller Lite and a Sam Adams Winter Lager (Brainerd Q's drink of choice?) and Jenna, our vacantly cute waitress, was first shocked that Jill was born in 1974, then equally shocked that I was born in 1980, muttering something like "oh my totally backwards!". Our first lesson about BQB- he looks older than he is, and likes young-lookin' older ladies.

A few more notes about Brainerd- he likes to cook (he cooked or bought every morsel of food he and Jill consumed this weekend, something Bryan would certainly never do). He hates the Steelers more than ever, but is excited for the Seahawks and their first trip to the Super Bowl. He drives his 1996 Accord recklessly, having already traded it in for a new model. And he sure as hail doesn't watch Desperate Housewives (ok, he lies- he's not perfect; he also spends an inordinate amount of time discussing potential baby names, despite fatherhood being a distant venture).

Brainerd Q. Bitchslap, signing off.

Cuckoo for Coco Crisp

2006-01-22T12:05:00.000-05:00

I think I'm excited about the Covelli Loyce Crisp era in Boston. I'm pretty sure they added the right Alex Gonzalez too.

Also, I bought a 2006 Honda Accord yesterday.